Aisle 411 is a free advertising supported application for the iPhone that enables you to quickly find what you are looking for at grocery stores, hardware stores, and other stores that support the application. It is designed to help you when shopping, even giving you the capability to build a shopping list, and via partners Celfire and Coupons, Inc., receive certain offers on products. For example, at select Home Depot stores, you can purchase a Dewalt Worksite Charger Radio for $169.
Aisle 411 recognizes generic terms such as "Table Saw" versus "Skil Table Saw
Aisle 411 screenshot
When you launch the app, you can choose to locate stores manually or via GPS. Tap the Locate Me button and the stores within a 10 mile radius that support the app will appear. Tap a store and a search bar comes up. You can either type in what you are looking for or Tap + Speak, which enables you to speak directly so the app can use voice recognition to interpret what you are saying.
The application works when you speak a generic term and the application recognizes what you are speaking. For example, when I spoke “Skil Table Saw” into Aisle411 when searching a Home Depot store, the application couldn’t interpret Skil. I then dropped Skil and said “Table Saw” and it recognized the phrase and directed me to aisle 14 in the tool section. Pretty nifty.
When searching for “peanut butter” at the local Vons store in my area, Aisle411 came up with several results, including peanut butter on aisle 15, peanut butter M&M’s on aisle 1, peanut butter chips on aisle 12 in the baking section, and chunky peanut butter on aisle 15.
So far the app does most of what it claims to do, which is to locate products in the various stores that support the app. There are other aspects to the app as well, such as the shopping list feature, which enables you to manage what you want to buy, and even create a route in the store to make shopping more efficient, (because we know the stores are designed to generate impulse buys!) and the offers, which offer up coupons and discounts for select items at certain stores. The free app also has various advertisements that cycle through on the bottom of the app when you click one of the tabs at the bottom (offers, home, lists, reviews), as well, so those who don’t like ads, be aware of that. One cool aspect is the capability to read the barcode of a product, and pull up an Amazon review of that product, provided the product is recognized by the app and there is a review of it on Amazon. It doesn’t recognize a lot of items that I scanned, everyday items, but I imagine more items will be recognized in the future.
Overall, it is pretty cool to have a list on your iPhone as well as the directions to where those products are, that is if you shop at Vons or Ralphs, or Home Depot or Lowes, at least in my area. Those who shop at Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s are out of luck, as there is no love there for Aisle411. For more information, visit www.aisle411.com
