Google Shopper is a mobile app for that lets you search for for the best deals from your phone, either by entering text or scanning a barcode or cover art with your phone’s camera. It comes in handy when you find something in a store that seems a bit overpriced and you want to check and see if you can find a cheaper price online or at a nearby store.

Now you can also use Google Shopper for Android to scan magazine ads and search for feature products. Honestly, this sounds like the sort of upgrade that’s meant to appeal to marketers more than shoppers, but in some way it makes the experience of reading a printed magazined feel a little more like surfing the web. You can’t click a hyperlink on a magazine page to open a new page, but now you can sort of “click” on the ads… with your phone’s camera.

The latest version of Google Shopper also adds support for QR code scanning (in addition to old fashioned barcodes), better filtering, some bug fixes, and new user interface which is a lot more… blue, than the earlier versions. The new UI also shows featured items on the start screen as well as big buttons to start a new search by typing, talking, or scanning. You can also view saved searches that you’ve added a star to, or view your history.

Google Shopper 1.4 is available as a free download from the Android Market.
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Google has added Sprint to the growing list of wireless providers that support carrier billing for the Android Market. That means Sprint can purchase apps from the android Market and select the “Bill my Sprint account” option to have the charges show up on their monthly phone bill instead of charging a credit card.

Carrier billing options are also available from T-Mobile and AT&T in the US, and SoftBank, KDDI, and NTT DOCOMO in Japan.

Mobile apps have a well-deserved reputation for being cheap, with $0.99 to $1.99 being a pretty common price for software that would easily set you back far more on a desktop computer. But if a buck is still to much to pay, you might want to check out App Hunter. It’s a free app that finds popular free apps in the Android Market, and also tracks apps as they go on sale.

For instance, popular racing app Asphalt HD normally runs $4.99, but it’s currently on sale for $0.99. And TurboFly 3D, which normally costs $2.73 is on sale right now for $0.98. Both show up today in the “On Sale” tab in App Hunter.

There’s also a “Hot Free” tab which shows you popular free apps, while New Free shows you a stream of recently released free apps.

That’s really about it for features. App Hunter doesn’t let you search or filter apps in any way. But if you keep an eye on App Hunter you may be able to find some good bargains. When you find an app you want to download, just tap it and App Hunter will open up the download page in the Android Market.

If you’re looking for a similar app for the iPhone, you might want to check out App Shopper, which offers far more features. Unfortunately App Shopper isn’t currently available for Android.

App Hunter is available as a free download from the Android Market for Android 1.6 and up.

Update: AppsFire for Android (and iOS) offers more features, including a list of apps with demos, personalized recommendations, and a search function. But the user interface is also a lot more cluttered.

via Download Squad

Microsoft has launched a new deals feature, which offers more than 200,000 offers from businesses in 13,000 cities throughout the US. The service is available from the Bing.com web site or from the mobile site (m.bing.com).

The bargains come from The Dealmap, which gathers its data from Groupon, LivingSocial, Restaurant.com and other services. If you’re wondering why you should use Bing instead of the Dealmap web site or mobile apps, it’s because the Bing user experience is optimized for mobile and you can use it without installing a single thing on your phone. Just click the Deals button from the Bing mobile web site and let your phone share your location, and a list of local businesses offering deals will appear.

The top of the screen plots the deals on a map, and there’s a drop-down menu letting you sort deals by distance from your current location or expiration date.

You can also use the filters at the top for the page to look for saved deals, nearby deals, or sort by category. And of course, Bing wouldn’t be much of a search engine if you couldn’t  also search for deals by entering keywords in the search box.

Bing Deals is available on most desktop browsers and on mobile browsers on iOS and Android devices. Because the service relies on HTML5, Windows Phone 7 isn’t currently supported. Microsoft’s mobile platform should get an HTML5-capable web browser later this year.

Google Shopper is a mobile app that’s been available for Android phones for a while, making it easy to scan an item at the store and see if you can order it cheaper online. Now Google Shopper is also available for the iPhone and iPod touch.

You can use Google Shopper with your device’s camera to scan a barcode or cover art for books, CDs, or DVDs. You can also tap the Voice Search button and tell Google Shopper what item you’re looking for. Or if you want to be old-fashioned about it, you can enter a search query in the text box.

Search results can be sorted by price, relevance, or seller rating. You can add a star to an item to find it again later. And you can check availability at local stores or online shops. Google Shopper also shows you product reviews and other details when available.

Google Shopper is available as a free download from the App Store. Android users can grab the app from the Android Market.

via ReadWriteWeb

MasterCard’s ATM Hunter app is a pretty nifty tool that lets you find the closest cash machine based on your location. You can click on any listing for detailed information about the ATM in question including its distance, position on a map, and feature (although there’s no key or legend letting you know what those features are).

Scan to download

The app showed up in the Android Market recently, and while it works pretty well for me in Philadelphia, some users have complained it isnt’ very accurate in other parts of the globe.

But if the user interface doesn’t look like it was designed for Android, that’s because it wasn’t. The free app has been available for iOS for a while, and the Android version looks like a direct port.

That would probably be fine, although the back buttons at the top of the screen are clearly a bit redundant on most Android phones. But the funny thing is that MasterCard forgot to change the product description. The Android Market listing says you can “Find ATMs located around the world with your iPhone’s GPS, by entering an address or an airport location, from wherever you happen to be.” That’s  pretty neat trick if you’re using an Android phone, not an iPhone, isn’t it?

I suspect the product listing will be updated soon. It’d be nice if someone at MasterCard also updates the UI a bit.

Update: The project listing has been updated. It now says “Find ATMs located around the world with your Android’s GPS.” I’m not sure that’s grammatically correct (shouldn’t it be “your Android phone’s GPS?”) but it’s certainly an improvement.

via Android Central

Google has pushed out a new version of Shopper, its mobile shopping app. Like earlier versions the new Google Shopper app lets you scan barcodes or cover art to check online prices for an item at a number of stores — possibly saving you from overpaying at the book store or supermarket. You can also search by entering text or do a voice search.

Scan to download

The new version adds additional filter options, so you can sort listings by relevance or price, or filter by price, store, or brand. The release notes say you should also be able to filter by “free shipping,” but I haven’t actually encountered this filter option yet… although it may only be available for some products. For instance, when you search for “iPod,” the only brand that’s available is clearly Apple. But when you search for “SD Card,” the brand filter offers a wide range of options. Maybe I just haven’t searched for an item where Google is aware of free shipping.

There are also a number of bug fixes, and a front page that looks a little more crowded thanks to a banner showing featured products from Google’s partners.

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

The Google Shopper app for Android does a pretty good job of letting  you stroll through the aisles of a store, scan the barcode on a box of cereal and find out if it’s cheaper at another store. But ScanLife is a new app that goes a bit further.

Scan to download

You can use ScanLife’s Android app to scan virtually any barcode or QR code to get more information about a product. The service will then search for online prices for new, used, and refurbished versions of the product. You can also find user reviews, coupons, and other information.

I tried scanning a few items around my house, including an old (but classic) video game box, and even a box of staples. ScanLife had no problem recognizing each item and finding relevant data — although I didn’t notice a lot of reviews.

There’s also a “Related Products” tab, which appears to be a bit of a work in progress. It told me that “Time Out with Britney Spears” was related to my box of staples.

ScanLife is available as a free download from the Android Market, but after you scan a few barcodes, be prepared to fill out a brief survey to keep using the app.

via Android Community