The free StubHub app for iPhone and Android was updated this week to include the ability to download tickets directly to your device.

This feature, known as mobile ticketing, takes StubHub from just a service for buying and selling tickets and transforms it into a tool you can show at the gate instead of a paper ticket.

With the update, you can find tickets for sporting events and concerts and download purchased tickets directly to your device, rather than having to print out your ticket from an email. For entry into events, you’ll need to zoom in on the barcode to show the full ticket.

For now, this feature is limited to StubHub’s collaboration with the San Francisco Giants, but they’re expecting more national teams and venues to follow. Between training staff and acquiring the technology required for this kind of barcode scanning, it’s not certain how long it will take for more venues to get on board.

via IntoMobile

Swedish superstore Ikea has released a digital version of its popular catalog for Android devices. That’s the good news. I know people who treat the catalog like a magazine and flip through it for fun even when they’re not shopping.

The bad news is that the app can’t be installed to an SD card, so if you try to install it on an Android smartphone it will download 50MB of images, text, and other data and leave little room on your phone for other apps.

The catalog features about 4,000 pictures and about 2,000 products. You can flip through pages, jump to a page by number, visit first last, previous or next, or zoom in for a better view. There’s also a tablet of contents, bookmarking feature, and you can search the catalog’s text. When you tap on the plus sign next to any product you can view a detail page with a picture, price, and other information.

Ikea is rolling out the catalog app in phases around the globe. The US version went live earlier this month. It will hit Spain, China, and other locations soon… including Sweden, where it will be available Thursday.

Ikea’s app is basically just a portable catalog — but if you’re looking for an app to use in-stores, you might want to check out free (and unofficial) Ikea Picking List which helps you keep track of the items you want to pick up at the store’s self service section as you stroll through the aisles.

via reddit

Google isn’t the only company building support for NFC (Near Field Communications) technology into its mobile payment apps. PayPal showed off a new app today that will allow you to transfer money simply by tapping two phones together.

You just fire up the PayPal app on your phone and set it up to send money or receive money. Once the phones come into contact you’ll still need to enter a password or PIN before the transaction is complete, so it won’t be easy to transfer money using a stolen phone and hopefully you won’t accidentally send your buddy $100 by accident just because your phones are placed net to one another on the coffee table.

The app currently works on the Google Nexus S, which happens to be the only Android phone available in the US with NFC.

PayPal unveiled the new app at the MobileBeat conference today. You can check out a demo video after the break.

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Google Shopper is an Android app that began its life as a sort of mobile price comparison tool. See an item in a store, but not sure if it’s being sold at the best price? Just whip out your Android smartphone, scan the barcode with your camera and Google Shopper will let you know if it’s cheaper online — or even at another nearby store.

Last month Google rolled out an update adding local “Offers” divided up into Eat and Play categories. These offers allow you to find local businesses that are offering coupons for food, recreational activities, or other items.

Today the company announced a new update which adds to the Offers features with a new “Today’s Offer” tab which will show a different major promotion each day — if you happen to live in Portland, San Francisco, or New York City, where Offers are being tested at the moment.

Honestly, that’s the only major change I can see in the new app although Google’s official blog post would seem to suggest that several other features that have been around for a month are also new. Eventually Google will roll Google Wallet integration into the app, allowing you to pay for purchases with your phone.

Google Shopper is available as a free download from the Android Market.

Online auction site eBay has released a major update to its Android app, adding a whole slew of seller tools. The eBay app for Android which was released last year only included tools for searching and tracking auctions and making purchases.

Version 1.5 now allows users in the US and UK to list items, upload photos from ta phone, and use a barcode scanner to find information about the item you’re selling and automatically fill out item details.

You can also use eBay 1.5 for Android to revise auction information, relist items from your unsold list, or use the “sell one like this” feature when you find an item on eBay that’s similar to the one you want to list.

The app even allows you to close an auction, mark an item as shipped, or contact a buyer. Basically you can now have the whole eBay experience on your phone, no PC required since you can list an item on your phone, manage your auctions, and even let your buyer know that the package is on the way the moment you drop it off at the post office.

There are also a few tweaks to the buyer tools in the latest update including the ability to refine search results by free shipping, location, and other criteria.

eBay 1.5 for Android is available as a free download from the Android Market.

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Google has rolled out an updated version of its mobile shopping app for Android which adds support for nearby offers and coupons. You can still use Google Shopper 1.5 to search for products using online and local stores. But you can also now click the “nearby Offers tab from the home screen to see if any nearby businesses are offering deals.

The offers are divided into Eat, Play, and All tabs. You can view a list or see the offers plotted on a map. And Google Shopper lets you save coupons and other offers for later.

Each offer lets you know at a glance how deep the discount is, when you need to redeem the coupon by, and how far you are from the business offering the deal.

I fired up the app this morning to see if there were any good deals I might want to check out for lunch… and I have to say I’m pretty underwhelmed by the collection of offers in Philadelphia at the moment. But hopefully the number of deals will expand over time.

Google Shopper is available as a free download from the Android Market.

The Google Nexus S phone which launched earlier this year is one of the first US smartphones to include NFC, or Near Field Communications technology which is used overseas to allow people to make purchases from retail stores using a phone instead of a credit card. But hardware only gets you so far. You also need the software to back it up, and while the inclusion of NFC technology in Google’s flagship phone was a good indication that the company had something up its sleeve, it wasn’t until today that Google spelled out its vision for turning your phone into a credit card.

Google is introducing two new services: Google Wallet and Google Offers. They’re designed to let you store multiple credit cards, loyalty cards, and gift cards on your phone, as well as coupons and other promotions. The result is a much thinner wallet that offers more features… but you’d best hope your phone doesn’t run out of juice before you get the checkout line.

Google Wallet is basically a system that lets store your credit card information on your phone (or info for multiple cards). MasterCard’s PayPass system will allow you to tap your phone and a checkout to make a payment without revealing your credit card data. MasterCard says over 300,000 merchants already have the PayPass system in place

Google is field testing Google Wallet right now and plans to launch a public beta of the service soon. At launch it will be available in a handful of major cities including New York, San Francisco, and Portland.

Google Offers is a new coupon/discount service. You can sign up for email notifications, and the service will also connect with other Google services including Search, Maps, Latitude and Shopper to show offers that may be of interest when you’re searching for information or checking into a location.

When you make a purchase or save an offer, it gets stored in your Google Wallet account. And retailers who work with Google can offer loyalty cards through the Google Offers and Google Wallet system so that you don’t have to carry around a dozen different cards to get frequent shopper promotions.

Initially the Google Nexus S will be the only supported phone, but as more NFC-capable Android phones hit the streets Google will expand the service.

Social reading site Goodreads has finally launched an Android app, and so has online apparel store Zappos. Music store 7digital now lets you purchase and download music on an Android device, and xBackup lets users with jailbroken iOS devices backup and restore all of their jailbroken apps for easy re-installation.

Here’s a roundup of some mobile app stories on our radar from around the web:

• Goodreads social reading app now available for Android
  Goodreads is a web site that makes reading social by letting you show your friends what you’re reading, read reviews, maintain lists of books you’ve read and want to read, and much more. The company has offered an iPhone app for a while, and now Goodreads is finally available for Android. [Android Police]
• 7Digital music store for Android now lets you purchase and download tracks
  The 7digital music store offers more than 14 million MP3 tracks. But up until recently you had to purchase those songs on a computer and transfer them manually to your phone if you wanted to listen on an Android device. Now the latest Android app supports on-device downloads. [Android Community]
• JotNot for iPhone is a document scanner for iOS
  JotNot Scanner is a free (or cheap if you want to go ad-free) app for scanning documents on an iPhone. The app also removes shadows and other noise from photographs. [CNet]

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