GoodGuide app for iPhone aids you in finding safe, healthy and sustainable products/items while shopping. You can find any product by barcode scan, search or browsing its database, and in the result, you could find the ratings for health, animal testing, environment, social responsibility, and other factors that may influence you decision to purchase eventually. At present, the GoodGuide packs information on about 100,000+ products across various categories. GoodGuide iPhone app is a free application.
Features of GoodGuide App
Once you download and install GoodGuide app in your iPhone, you are taken to a bit lengthy process of updating its database. Over a 3G connection, it should be done within couple of minutes at the most.
The iPhone GoodGuide app packs information on products in many categories including personal care, food, babies and kids, pet food, household, apparel, appliances, electronics, cars, and lots more! You can either use GoodGuide’s search feature to find out your product, or alternatively you can browse the relevant categories/subcategories to find the products of your liking. For example, in the category named ‘personal care’, you can find entries such as bubble bath, deodorant, and baby lotion. Within each subcategory, you could find further information on the list of ingredients that you should preferably avoid, alongside the highest rated product under the said subcategory.
Like many iPhone apps, GoodGuide also comes equipped with an inbuilt barcode scanner. You need to tap on ‘scan barcode’ option, and point the iPhone’s camera to the barcode until it’s visible within the guidelines on the display. When the guidelines turn green in color, hold the phone still until it scans the barcode. If the barcode is not present in the database, it will prompt the user of the same through a popup, and in turn the user can suggest including it into the database. However, barcodes on flat or round surfaces pose a challenge to the app. Hence it is advisable to place the object of scanning on a flat surface, and hold the iPhone using your two hands, before attempting to scan it for best results.
Conclusion
GoodGuide app for iPhone is a handy free application to add to your smart phone. Its database may not contain everything, but it still got enough info about products that you feel good about supporting with your hard-earned money. The barcode scanner may not work well on curvy/ shiny items. But overall, GoodGuide is good enough!
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