“Don’t forget to make a list.”
“I have done!”
“Well, I’ve started one too.”
Bashes smartphones together.
Buy Me A Pie!, the cloud-powered grocery list maker for iOS, has released a nifty – and, potentially, relationship saving — update for its app which adds support for Bump, so that users can now sync their shopping lists simply by bumping their iPhones together. The idea is to make it even easier for households to collaborate on and share grocery shopping duties.
Technically, the feature is implemented using Bump’s API, while I’m told that the idea came about as a direct response to user feedback. “Often users couldn’t figure out how to setup lists sharing and it wasn’t very simple since it involved entering account information on the tiny keyboard of a mobile phone”, says Buy Me A Pie! maker Skript’s CEO Oleg Nederev.
Sharing and syncing is a key part of the cloud-powered service, but then so is simplicity, so this might actually be a good use for Bump’s technology. Perhaps more than payments, grocery lists are likely to be shared in person in close proximity as one or more members of the household writes the list and another actually goes out and does the shopping.
In fact, Buy Me A Pie! has tried to encourage multiple downloads from the get-go — the previous update saw the app add ‘app gifting’ functionality, making it easy for friends, housemates and family members to purchase the app for each other, motivated by the convenience of sharing and synchronising their grocery shopping lists.
What’s still missing, however, is an Android version, though Nederev tells me this is getting closer by the day and that the company is now soliciting pre-registrations. Screenshots of the app show that it takes many of its design cues from the iOS version, retaining the same simple but fun (can I say skeuomorphic?) design.
Meanwhile, the newly-released iOS version is currently being discounted — $.99, down from $2.99 — until the 29th of December, which shouldn’t come as any surprise. Time-limited sales and giveaways are a key part of what looks likes a pretty successful ‘organic’ marketing strategy for Skript, seeing the app strike up 2 million downloads in total, as reported in September.