Gift Plan: Santa’s App For Mere Mortals

Christmas time is here again. I am reminded of the holiday’s presence by the decorated trees, sparkling lights, Christmas tunes on the radio and that huge pile of festively wrapped gifts. Oh wait! I knew I was forgetting something! It looks like yet another last-minute gift-grabbing spree for me!

But now the real challenge begins. Her favorite color was red, right? Does he worship or despise Manchester United? And after all the effort I went through to secretly sneak into the closet to find her real shirt size, I’ve already forgotten what it was. And how much was that new iPod Touch going to cost again? If only I could keep track of all of that and more. If only I had known about Gift Plan sooner!

What’s the Occasion?

Gift Plan works on the basis of Occasions. At first use, you are able to choose from such events as Birthdays, Christmas, and Anniversaries, but you can add any others as necessary.

Of course, you will need to have someone for whom the occasion is being planned, so when you click the “+” button on the main screen, you will be offered a number of ways to add people into your Gift Plan entourage. The first method is to simply create a new Gift Plan contact with the “Add new person” button. Input their name and an optional photo and you’re done.  Likewise, you can import your iPhone contacts and/or Facebook friends.  After a few taps and some login info perhaps, your Gift Plan is now filled with plenty of people to keep your shopping days busy!

Now it’s just a matter of choosing a person from your list and adding them to any number of occasions either presets or custom.

If you start to get overwhelmed with the sheer number of your closest and most dearly personal acquaintances that fills your shopping list, it’s a simple matter to filter people by relevant events.  Just select or deselect any event, and your list will almost immediately reflect the new changes.

Making A List

So now you’re sure not to forget your Uncle Joe’s birthday, but what do you get him?  You seem to remember his poor taste in general fashion; maybe a new suit would do well.  That is a good idea,  now if only you could remember his size…  Oh wait, his size, favorite brands, and colors are all in Gift Plan for you, making a quick visit to the mall (with obligatory smoothie stop) the only thing left to do!

Shop Like A Pro

Since Gift Plan kept a balance of estimated gift prices, you had enough money left over to get the Mega-Mouth sized smoothie!  So, receipts in pocket and bags in hand, you can check off Uncle Joe’s suit and still have time to catch the latest episode of “The Big Bang Theory”.  A successful day I think.

Help and The Settings

To make the most out of your Gift Plan experience, the developers have included an incredibly insightful “Info” section with a “Help” feature that will give you detailed assistance for dealing with any task from adding a birthday to optimizing the profile images.  If the well-planned interface of Gift Plan leaves you at any time wondering what to do next, just pull of the help section and you should be gifting again in no time!

And finally, you can use the “Settings” tab to enable notifications of coming events, create new events, or set a private passcode (to keep those curious eyes from sabotaging your gift-giving plans).

“Wrapping” It Up

Of course there’s just one final thing that makes any gift just that much cooler- the wrapping.  It doesn’t matter if you’re giving a new suit, a book, or a 700″ plasma tv- some simple wrapping paper or a festive gift bag shows the extra effort and personal touch that make the whole experience much more enjoyable.  So it only seems reasonable that a gift shopping app should be just as exciting to use and Gift Plan certainly takes that to heart!

Whether it’s the welcoming gift-wrapped/bow introductory animation or the elegant blue and dark interface with plenty of sliding effects, there isn’t a moment when Gift Plan is undesirable to use if not outright fun!