Amazon Mobile now ringing up sales on iPhone

(Credit: CNET)

On Wednesday, Amazon announced the throwing open of its virtual doors to iPhone and iPod Touch users everywhere with Amazon Mobile, a free app now available in the iTunes App Store.

It's a pretty nice offering that simplifies the search experience for products found not just on Amazon.com, but also on partner retailers Target and Macy's.

The bulk of the app is dominated by a search bar you can launch either from the home screen or from a separate Search screen. While there's a tiny promo area on Amazon Mobile's home screen, the app completely omits browsing by categories. The vast majority of shoppers probably beeline to their wanted product, but there should be an option to browse from the More menu.

The surprise feature is one Amazon is trying on for size that lets you snap a photo of a product to jog your memory later. In addition, the app will try to find the product in Amazon's catalog. Amazon Remembers, as the feature's called, was a little slow when we tried it out, but found our products in the end.

This visual shopping assistant is a great feature that replicates many others we've seen for iPhone and Google Android. SnapTell for iPhone (free) is also more flexible, pulling in data and price comparisons from IMDb, Barnes and Noble, and Wikipedia, along with Amazon.com.

However, Amazon Mobile's advantage to registered members is its simplified purchasing that honors 1-Click buying and Amazon Prime, and its memory for items you've flagged in your wish list, shopping cart, and now, photo bank.

[usualsuspect87]

i wish amazon would make their normal webpage work better on my phone! don't know much about web design, but all of the product pictures show up as blue question marks. :(

i hope this is better than that crappy web app they had for the iphone, that was/still is worthless

guess i'll give this a try...

[john474]

Not available in Canada? Can already do 1 click purchase on my computer but can not download this application to my iPhone? Is this a temporary situation?

[mchiu77]

There's no need to wait for Amazon's Mechanical Turks to respond to your searches. We have developed an iPhone app, Pricepad, that syncs your Shopping Wishlist, including photos, with the web. You can share your list with anyone directly from the phone by sending an email.

Pricepad is available for US, UK, Canada and can also lookup barcodes.

[J.G.]

Snaptell only works with media -- books, music, videos, magazines, etc. You will need Amazon for all other types of products.

Amazon's APIs are private. So, 'Pricepad' likely violates their terms. Also, there is a security issue, since Amazon links to most users bank accounts.