Earlier today, Keith reported that Delicious Library developer Wil Shipley had barcode scanning on his radar as a future iteration for the late, lamented iPhone version of the popular catalog app. Lo and behold, within a few hours the newest update to the Amazon Mobile app hit the store — featuring, you guessed it, barcode scanning.
With the new 1.2.8 version of the free app, and an iPhone 4 or 3GS running iOS 4.x, you can quickly scan a product barcode to search Amazon’s catalog for matching items. The scanning screen offers a handy bracketing guide to show you where to position your product, and once you get the hang of it the scanning is very quick.
I tested the barcode scan on three products I had lying about — a Griffin Motif case for the iPhone 4, a Flip Mino box, and a James Patterson novel — and the app identified the product each time without trouble. You could use the Amazon Remembers feature of the app to snap a picture of the cover instead, or use Google Goggles / Noogle Noggles to search by the barcode, but if you’re used to working in the Amazon app for product searches this feature is a win.
Amazon barcode scanning is a trifle faster than either of the Goggles apps, and more streamlined from a user interaction perspective as well. Since Amazon’s tool is only looking for an in-focus barcode it doesn’t need the camera button; that saves a tap and an awkward product-hand-iPhone alignment dance. (Only Noogle Noggles, from Delicious Monster, supports the camera-equipped iPod touch at this time.)
Search on!
Thanks Jacob for the heads up!
TUAWAmazon’s iPhone app gets barcode scanning update originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 12 Oct 2010 20:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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