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

Amazon has released a new mobile app for iOS aimed at students. You can use Amazon Student to buy items from your phone or scan barcodes to check prices so that you can decide whether to buy that textbook or video game in the store or if it would be cheaper to order it from Amazon. But the company’s existing Amazon app for iOS does those things too.

What’s new in the Amazon Student app is a “sell your stuff” option that lets you scan the barcodes on your books, DVDs, games, or other items and find out how much Amazon will offer you in trade-in value. You can then ship your items to Amazon for free and Amazon will give you a gift card for that value.

Don’t expect to strike it rich using this app. I dug up an old college textbook which is still selling for $32 on Amazon, and the app told me I could get a whopping $3.26 if I traded it in. Amazon only offered 50 cents for a DVD I scanned.

But if you’re looking for a way to make your next textbook purchase a bit more affordable and you’re too lazy to go through the hassle of listing your old items on eBay, the Amazon Student app may come in handy. If you’re only dealing with used textbooks though, you can probably get a better bargain by selling them back to your school’s bookstore, assuming there’s a buy-back program in place.

Apple has released a new version of the mobile Apple Store app for iOS. The app still lets you browse for Apple products and make purchases from your mobile device, but there are new features including the ability to customize your orders and a new in-store mode.

The in-store mode will let you get help and support quickly when you’re at an Apple Retail Store. For example, you can walk into a store and the app will know your store’s location. The app will also ask if you’d like to speak to a specialist.

Surprisingly, the app is not universal, meaning the iPad currently lacks support for the update. If you have an iPhone running iOS 4.0+, you can download the updated app for free from the App Store.

via 9 to 5 Mac

Google has rolled out updates for two of its iOS apps today: Google Search and Google Shopper.

The Google Search app snow includes larger fonts, tappable search results, and an option to disable voice search via gestures. But the biggest change is that Google says the app should be up to 20% more responsive. Apparently the company had received complaints that the last update made the app much slower than previous versions of the official Google app for iOS.

Google Shopper 1.2 for iOS, meanwhile, has been updated to look more like the latest version for Android. It includes the new blue color scheme, filters for search results, featured lists for browsing, and support for scanning QR codes and print advertisements. There’s also a new history view.

Both Google Search and Google Shopper are available as free download from the App Store.

Groupon is a daily deals site that offers local bargains in hundreds of cities in 44 countries. But while you could sign up for the Groupon daily email or visit the web site in any of those locations, up until recently the company’s iOS app only worked in the US. Now Groupon is available in all 44 countries where the company offers deals.

For more on how Groupon works and how the service compares to its closets competitor, LivingSocial, you can check out a recent article I wrote for Laptop Magazine.

In a nutshell, you can use the mobile app to see the latest deals, make purchases, and view Groupons you’ve previously purchased. You can also flash the app at most locations to redeem your coupon code instead of printing it out to take with you.

Groupon for iOS is availabl as a free download from the App Store.

via IntoMobile

Foursquare, Gowalla, Yelp, and plenty of other services let you “check in” to locations using your phone. Want to let your friends know where you’re having lunch of coffee in case they want to join you? Just check in. As an added bonus, many businesses will offer coupons to customers who check in regularly.

Bizzy is a service that also lets you hit a button on your phone when you’re at a store, restaurant, or other business. But instead of checking in, Bizzy wants you to check out. The idea is that instead of firing up the app when you enter an establishment, you use it when you’re done to rate your experience.

You can rate locations, share short tips, and share locations on Facebook or Twitter. Bizzy will also ask you questions to find out which coffee shops, restaurants, groceries, or other locations are already among your favorites.

With this date, Bizzy can find other users with similar tastes, which is a great way to find new places you might be interested in checking out. And the more you check in, the more Bizzy will be able to offer tailored recommendations based on your preferences.

Bizzy is certainly an interesting concept, and even if you don’t go in for the whole social aspect of check-ins, the service could help you find new places to check out if you use it long enough for the app to get to know you — if that doesn’t sound a little creepy.

You can download Bizzy for iPhone for free from the App Store.

via All Things D

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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.

If you travel a lot for business, you know what a headache it can be to save and file all of your receipts and then enter all the data onto expense reports. A new smartphone app called capturengo is designed to make the process a lot simpler.

Here’s how it works. You pull out your BlackBerry or iPhone, snap a photo of your receipt and upload it to capturengo’s web service.The site will save the images in an IRS-approved format.

Then you can login to the capturengo web site from any computer to review and manage your receipts and add the data to an expense report which you can download or print.

You can also forward receipts from web sites or email. The service also lets you snap screenshots of business cards and manage the data online.

The basic service is free, and lets you submit up to 50 receipts or business cards per month. Unlimited service runs $99 per year.

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to really test the service because while I was able to download and install the capturengo app on my iPod touch, the app wasn’t able to detect my camera.

Capturengo is available as a free download from the iTunes App Store and BlackBerry App World.

via Business Insider

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