[APP] AmazonIt! 1.3 [2010.09.13] barcode price lookup

[APP] AmazonIt! 1.3 [2010.09.13] barcode price lookup


What It Does
AmazonIt! helps you shop. Ever see an item on the shelf that looks interesting, but you wonder
A) if you can find it cheaper online?
B) if it's any good?

That's where AmazonIt! comes in. Using AmazonIt!, you can scan a product's UPC or EAN barcode, and see its Amazon.com price and ratings.
AmazonIt! will also show you if the price of an item has changed since it was last updated.



How It Works
AmazonIt! uses a converted version of the java library Zxing to detect barcodes. It then uses Amazon's Product Advertising API in order to retrieve product information.

Requirements

• Windows Mobile 5 or greater
• .NET CF 3.5 or greater
• Unlimited Data plan (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED)

Latest News
Bugfix/new feature release (see changelog below)

Registration
F-R-E-E

History
[2010.09.13] - 1.3 bugfix/feature release
[2010.08.28] - 1.2 bugfix/feature release
[2010.08.23] - 1.11 bugfix/feature release
[2010.08.18] - 1.1 bugfix/feature release
[2010.08.01] - 1.0 initial release

Contact
Official app page
Follow PhilChuang.com software on twitter!

1.3 Features

• Scan, load, or input UPC/EAN barcodes, ISBN, ASIN
• Retrieve product info, prices, and ratings from Amazon.com
• Launch product link in your mobile browser
• Send product information via email

1.3 Notes

• Limited feature release (v2.0 will be more robust)
• Touch-scrolling isn't great, but it works
• Most international Amazon.com sites are now supported (except Japan)
• Barcode detection library is substandard but free. I'll try to improve it for v2.0.

To Do List

• Support for more barcodes
• Faster barcode detection
• Manually add an item by searching Amazon.com by keyword
• Discover related items
• Manually enter a store's price for an item
• Automatically determine the best price for an item
• Attach pictures to an item
• Save the GPS location of an item
• Read product reviews
• Query other shopping sites/engines

1.3 changelog
Bugfix/new feature release

ENH user can now clear the cached files
ENH user can now load a barcode image (rather than using the camera)
ENH user can now manually check for new versions (instead of waiting a day)

MOD improved item selection behavior
MOD performance optimizations

FIX email sending issues
FIX OutOfMemory exception when loading larger bitmaps

1.2 changelog
Bugfix/new feature release

ENH can now look up products by ASIN (Amazon product id)
ENH can now email info for multiple products
ENH now saves sorting settings and restores on next start

MOD UI tweaks
MOD improved email formatting

FIX items removed while updating no longer reappear
FIX improved amazon update price handling / net code tweaks
FIX handles non-standard amazon average ratings
FIX Update All behavior
FIX ISBN-10 barcode detection

1.11 changelog
Bugfix/new feature release

ENH AmazonIt! now checks for a newer version, asks the user if they want to download it
ENH added tooltips for the buttons for a better user experience

MOD reworded barcode capture hints

FIX malformed product links

1.1 changelog
Bugfix/new feature release

ENH support for international amazon sites
ENH ability to manually input barcodes (if it has trouble decoding pics)

MOD now displays barcode capture hints
MOD user setting to launch mobile/full product links
MOD now deleting captured barcode pics after use
MOD duplicate items prevention
MOD sort bar now resizes on orientation change

FIX ArgumentException on list update
FIX OutOfMemoryException on bitmap decoding
FIX ArgumentNullException when the product link is launched before amazon info has been fetched

1.0 changelog
Initial release

-- reserved --

pestbeule said:

Hey... This app sounds great. Would it be possible to choose between amazon.co.uk and .de ? Should be easy to implement in your app. just a variable with the .tld inside. what do you think. with this trick you can use your app all around the world.

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

Yeah, that'll be in the next version. I just wanted to get this version out as quickly as possible.

Yay, front page again!

Just to clarify:

• Currently, you can only see the average rating and number of reviews, but not the actual reviews - this will be added in a future version
• Also, only Amazon.com prices are checked - future versions will check other online stores/resources as well as allow you to enter prices found in the field.

Hatefly said:

This looks great.

You mentioned that it will be able to use other sites. Would it be possible to have the ability to manually add a site or a location for search? I'm thinking, in the U.S., most people would use it for electronics, toys, etc.

The sites I'm thinking of are:

Wally World (ugh...)
Target
BestBuy
TigerDirect
NewEgg
Toys'R'Us
Fry's Electronics
B&H Photo
Adorama

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

The main issue with adding sites is whether or not they have an API for me to query them. I want to avoid having to parse HTML in order to search and find items. So unfortunately I can't make it so that anybody can plug in any search site.

However, I could provide a list of common search sites, and then launch that URL with the barcode, which would then open in your default browser.

Sean D. said:

Will it work on a QVGA device?

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

It looked fine on my QVGA emulator

AmazonIt! launches the device's built-in camera dialog. Take the picture as normal, then hit the back/close/ok button or close the camera dialog. AmazonIt! will then try and detect the barcode. If it can't detect it, it will ask if you want to retry - if it does detect it, then it will add that item to the list and attempt to retrieve product information from Amazon.com.

If the application does not behave as I just described, then that's a bug, so please let me know.