Grocery 2.0
Remember everything at the store
Free; premium version $7.99 From Conrad Stoll, conradstoll.com Made for iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch Needs iOS 11.0 or later
There’s no end of list–making apps, but Grocery focuses on grocery shopping, and adds features that try to make it easier.
New in version 2.0 is a Recipes section that allows you to create recipes and store their ingredients as a group. Recipes don’t have to be actual recipes — you could create one for regular items on your weekly shop, and add them to your list in one go.
There’s also a timer to allow you to keep track as you cook, and an Apple Watch app so you can check off items on a list as you buy them. We particularly like the geofencing feature that allows you to set the location of a store when you’re there, and be reminded of your shopping list for that store when you get there. Talking of stores, Groceries is based on them — that is, you don’t create lists of different types, you create Stores and add items to the relevant store. That means if you know you can buy what you need in one store but not another, you add it to that store’s list. Groceries also remembers what you add to a list and uses that to make suggestions in its “Quick add” section.
Those lists, and the geofencing feature, work because Groceries is closely tied to Reminders. When you create a new Store in Groceries, it creates a list in the Reminders app, and it uses Reminders’ geofencing tools to enable that feature. Add an item to a list in Grocery, and it appears in Reminders. That’s fine if you don’t use Reminders much, or you don’t mind adding extra lists, but if you prefer to keep apps separate, and don’t allow Grocery access to Reminders, it won’t work.
We found Grocery tricky to navigate. Adding items and checking them off is fine, but adding a new store is more difficult than it should be, needing three taps before you type the store’s name. If the idea of a dedicated grocery list app appeals, give Grocery a try, but for many of us Reminders itself is just fine.
the bottom line. A fine list–making app with some solid new features, but we’re not sure if it has enough beyond Reminders to justify using it. Kenny Hemphill