I wrote a review of GroceryIQ just over a year ago and I have continued to use it frequently. The new GroceryIQ 2 expands on the original concept by taking advantage of the power of a connected mobile device that can tap into the cloud. These significant improvements have pushed the app from “frequently used” to “indispensable” on my own iPhone. I’ll run down the features for you and then share some comments from the developer on how the cloud and the iPhone have come together to create great software.

What’s New in Version 2

The big update in version 2 is list syncing between multiple iPhones. In practice, this feature is incredibly valuable. Whenever my wife updates the list with something that we need, I get a push notification that something has been added to GroceryIQ. When I get to the store, I open the app and it quickly syncs my lists so that I am sure to not miss something we need. In addition, my wife instantly benefited from the effort I had put in to organize the aisles to match the layout of our store as well as the history and favorite items that I use to quickly build shopping lists.

GroceryIQ 2 also adds some features related to its acquisition by Coupons.com. You can find coupons on your iPhone and print them straight from the phone to a supported HP printer. I have a Canon printer so I use the email option to send the list of coupons I selected on the iPhone and print them from my computer. The list categories show logos for items that have coupons available as another reminder.

The gee-whiz feature in this release is barcode scanning to add items to your shopping list. You take a picture of the barcode using the iPhone camera and it will look up the item and add it to your list.

Frankly, I love this app because it actually makes shopping easier than using pencil and paper.

Jason Boehle from Coupons.com

I spent a little time catching up Jason Boehle from Coupons.com to talk about how the 2.0 release came about and how technology has made the simple task of making a shopping list even better.

Tell me about how you decided on the feature list for Version 2.

List sharing between devices has been a big request by users and was part of the original vision for Grocery iQ 1.0. We’re pleased to finally deliver it to our loyal customers. The new couponing features are another exciting addition to Grocery iQ and allow our customers to easily find coupons and savings directly related to what they’re shopping for. Barcode scanning is an incredibly useful feature for list building that many customers have requested, and we delivered one of the best barcode scanning experiences on the iPhone.

How is list sharing implemented?

List sharing is implemented using secure web services on the proven Coupons.com high-availability infrastructure. Apple’s push notification service is used to get list updates to your phone in real-time, while still taking it easy on device battery life. In addition to sharing a list between multiple devices, single devices can use the service as an online “backup” of their Grocery iQ data. One of the coolest things about doing all of the list sharing in the cloud is that we’re able to leverage this work to implement web-based list editing and sharing to devices as well as sync lists between other versions of Grocery iQ on other mobile platforms like Android, etc.

How does printing direct from the iPhone work?

We worked closely with HP to enable coupon printing directly from the iPhone to HP printers connected to wireless networks. In addition to loading coupons directly to your store savings cards, this is another feature that enables our customers who are away from their PC to still save money using Grocery iQ. The coupon printing feature is another example of highly leveraged work that is available in our Coupons.com iPhone app in addition to Grocery iQ. It also makes use of cloud-based services for all of the imaging and assembly of the retail-ready coupons.

How did the trend towards using cloud services impact the development of GroceryIQ 2?

The “cloud” has helped to enable all these new features in Grocery iQ 2.0. List sharing, coupon display, printing, and even barcode scanning all benefit from the power of a very sophisticated web service infrastructure. For example, we have an incredibly rich on-device product database which we use for barcode scanning and lookup. However, if we don’t find the product you just scanned in our on-device database we have the full power and extensibility of a web service that will search many other online databases to locate the item.

A cloud-connected device enables a whole host of scenarios. For example, your significant other can add items to your shared shopping list, load coupons to your savings card, and then send you to the store on your way home from work—and even make changes while you are there by scanning a snack box because the kids just finished it off. The built-in database enables a detailed shopping list, so you can be sure you’re getting the right items, and when you checkout, and the coupons are automatically applied when you swipe your savings card. Welcome to the digital age of grocery shopping!

Grocery Shopping Made Better

I know some of you may be wondering why I spilled this much digital ink on a grocery list app. Let me tell you, I use this app at least once a week and the list sharing features have really helped my wife and I keep up with the shopping demands of our large family. It really is better than keeping a paper list at home.

I also think that Jason’s comments about the cloud services that are leveraged in the iPhone app are important for the future of the platform. I think the next wave of iPhone development will show a lot of innovation in taking simple concepts that worked great in software and improving them by reexamining what is possible with a mobile device that is always connected to the cloud with push notifications. GroceryIQ is a great example of a cloud-connected app done right.

Smule

The team at Smule, the people who brought us Ocarina, Sonic Lighter, and Zephyr, were featured in the briefing with Apple yesterday. They demoed a new app that will take advantage of the peer-to-peer API’s in the iPhone 3.0 SDK.

Yeah, we offered a sneak peak of our new product, Leaf Trombone: World Stage, the first massive multi-player social music game (that’s a mouthful sir). We demonstrated a duet over their new Peer-to-peer API. In effect, this allows to devices to discover and pair, regardless of wifi/cell, etc. The discovery capability is quite neat. And the bandwidth is pretty darn good.

Ge and David performed “Phantom of the Opera” as a duet over bluetooth on two iPhones, which everyone can now enjoy by streaming the presentation. Of course, we haven’t seen all the magic that has become possible with the iPhone 3.0 SDK.

We have held back some of the more significant components of the leaf trombone for when we launch the product…

Iconfactory

Craig Hockenberry is a principal at Iconfactory, the collective of creative minds that brought us App Store favorites Twitterific and Frenzic. When asked about his reaction to today’s announcements, Craig was most impressed by the forward momentum of the iPhone platform.

“The thing that’s most positive in my mind is that today showed us how serious Apple is about this platform. They are not resting on their laurels: this release includes major enhancements for users and developers alike. “

Gedeon Maheux, another princiapl at Iconfactory, expressed his excitement and concerns about the new SDK.

We’re very excited about the potential opportunities that 3.0 represents, but there are also the possibility of pitfalls such as creating “content-free” apps that need paid upgrades to really deliver.

When asked about other changes, Craig felt that it was going to take some time to see how the App Store in-app payment mechanism would affect their current and future products. When pushed for further reaction, no single feature seemed to elicit enough excitement to bring out the CHOCKLOCK today, but expect some ALL CAPS tweets once developer.apple.com is back up and Craig can get his fleshy palms on the 3.0 SDK.

GroceryIQ

Jason Boehle is the co-founder of Free State Labs and one of the developers behind GroceryIQ. The company has since been acquired by Coupons, Inc. and development continues on the next version of the GroceryIQ app which will include syncing shopping lists between phones.

The most significant new feature announced today for Grocery iQ is push notifications. For example, you can know when your significant other adds an item to your shopping list. We are working on phone-to-phone sync right now, and push notifications will make that feature more useful.

While Jason is relieved that cut, copy and paste and MMS have finally found their way to the iPhone, like many others, he was most impressed with the bright future for the platform.

The 3.0 software is hugely important for the iPhone platform, as it shows Apple is continuing to innovate and blur the boundaries between phone and computer. iPhone developers should be very excited, as Apple is allowing more access to the hardware and software inside the device, and is providing us with much better ways to monetize our apps over time.

Marketcircle

Alykhan Jetha (better known as AJ) is the CEO of Marketcircle, the Mac business software company. They are working to bring their Daylite productivity management solution to the iPhone with the imminent release of Daylite Touch. Marketcircle is keen on the push notification service for Daylite Touch.

I also think that cut & paste and Spotlight will make the iPhone or iPod even more productive for a lot of people. We are looking forward to see how apps like ours can participate in Spotlight as well as how the whole thing works.

Still, there were some disappointments too.

I was hoping for background processes, or even periodic background processes, but no luck with that. I think that for a lot of apps, being able to run in the background every 30 minutes (or X hours) when the user is not using the device as opposed to always running would significantly reduce the battery problem. These things wouldn’t have to run for long. For example our typical sync takes less than 20 seconds.

Double Encore

Dan Burcaw, CEO of iPhone development consultancy Double Encore, was one of the early movers in the iPhone market and led the team behind the Brightkite iPhone app. Dan was also on hand for Apple’s announcements and was still riding the Apple high after he left 1 Infinite Loop and spoke with me on the way to the airport.

This definitely keeps the ball rolling. It was going to be hard for competitors to catch the iPhone and the App Store anyways, but I think Apple said, “We need to be flexible so we can keep this snowball rolling.” Everyone I talked to, my peers, other companies, are saying, “this thing just got better in a lot of ways.” Sure, Apple addressed the specific things that people wanted to change, but this is a really solid, broad release.

Since Dan was in the briefing, I was curious about the announcement that got the most attention from those present.

<laughing> You know, the Apple people kept asking that question too. I’m not sure, but as soon as the video goes up, look for this… When the ESPN app gets a push notification, the alert sound is the ESPN jingle. Da-da-da. That was cool. iPhone 3.0 gives people new ways to extend their brand. The new business models are going to allow companies to extend their brand to the iPhone in a big way too. All these changes to the SDK will bring the big boys into the game that had been sitting on the sidelines, now that they can use their branding in a bigger, richer way.

If you haven’t thought about building an iPhone app, you might want to look into it. This thing is going to be a runaway train by the time 3.0 hits.

A Runaway Train

The strong consensus among all the developers that I spoke with is that the 3.0 announcements have renewed their confidence in the iPhone platform. With 30 million devices out there (iPhone and iPod touch) and the momentum of the app store, existing developers are probably more excited about the iPhone than ever. If I could share one insight, it would be to keep an eye on what happens with the new accessory communication options. I heard several rumblings that this opens up a whole new round of innovation for the iPhone.

While no one picked any one single software feature, API, or Core service as the Next Big Thing, everyone was thrilled with the breadth and depth of the changes to the SDK. A theme developed that these developers felt like the wide range of features announced today made a strong statement about Apple’s commitment to the future of the iPhone platform. A future that, frankly, I’m pretty excited to watch unfold as well.

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Grocery IQ by Free State Labs was recently Apple’s App Store Pick of the Week, and for good reason.

While there are other grocery list apps, and plenty of generic task list apps, that can help you remember to bring home milk and eggs, Grocery IQ has a unique method of helping you select from an internal database of over 130,000 items including brand names that you can find in US grocery stores. The program is smart enough to filter the list as you type, and it will take partial words (think “cheer honey” for Cheerios Honey Nut Cereal) to help you find items even faster. You can add items to your shopping list and Grocery IQ will present you with the appropriate “size” options. It knows my favorite ice cream comes in pint containers, and that the dog food comes in 20lb or 40lb bags so I can be specific when planning my purchases.

Using the app while shopping is easy too. Grocery IQ includes the aisle information in its database to help you organize your circuit through the store. If an item is located somewhere else in your particular store, you can customize the aisle (and even the aisle names) to help you stay focused on your intended prey while you are traversing the linoleum-tiled halls of the store. When you finish, the app will save your items to its history. You can then use the history and the favorites to quickly build a shopping list for your next trip.

If you need someone else to pick up the items for you, you can email the list (arranged neatly in aisles) with the touch of a button. The email feature uses the built-in mail application to send your message, so you have the opportunity to add a polite, “would you mind?” to the request or provide details about the store where the recipient can find these items.

I was impressed with how many of the items in our pantry appeared in the database. The predictive search works relatively fast so you can get a list together in no time. The ability to refer to previously identified items from the history or your favorites has the benefit of making the app easier to use as time goes on (I love software that honors the effort I put into learning how to use it!). In the end, I much prefer this quick list building to having to type something out in the built-in Notes application on the iPhone.

Free State Labs is promising some great features in the next update as well. At the top of the list is support for multiple lists and stores. I assume this would let you make a produce list for the farmer’s market and a dry goods list for the neighborhood store, or separate lists for the membership club warehouse and the big box superstore. The next update should include even more grocery data as well. Version 2.0, planned for a November release, will include syncing between iPhones through the web. This would be the killer feature for our family so that my wife and I could both contribute items to a shared shopping list throughout the day that would be available to whomever managed to get to the store first.

For a limited time Grocery IQ is on sale for $1.99. It is regularly $4.99 so if you’re looking for a good deal, I’d suggest getting it right away.

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