As much as I hate to admit it, I am seriously addicted to my iPhone and I am guessing I’m not the only one. I use it to keep my day in order, entertain me in waiting rooms, inspire me at dinner time, tell me what I need to buy, give me a weather report, shop, talk, tweet and so much more. Being a food blogger I also use it for a manner of food-related purposes from research to shopping to converting measurements.
There are so many apps out there you could while away weeks checking them all out and download a thousand of them without spending a cent. I’ve done a little bit of app trawling in the last few weeks and come up with a list of what I consider the best food-related free apps around.
ShopShop
These aren’t in any particular order but ShopShop is one of the most-used apps on my iPhone. Yes I’m sure there are much better, more detailed shopping list apps out there but I love how simple ShopShop is. You can create as many lists as you like – I have one for butcher, supermarket, Aldi and the markets. Adding items is simple and after you add an item once, it saves it to your regular items and pops up automatically when you start to type it. The only bad thing about this app is I look a little bit stupid in the supermarket – you shake the phone to wipe out items you’ve put in the trolley.
Foodspotting
This app is entertaining as well as useful. People upload photos of their meal when they’re dining out and comment on them and then the app uses your location to show photos and reviews from restaurants near you. It’s a quick way to find somewhere to eat when you’re out and about. I don’t know about you, but I’m more likely to go to a restaurant that lots of other people have visited rather than one that’s had a good write up in the local paper.
The supermarkets
I’ve grouped these three together because they’re all pretty similar but very useful apps when it comes to shopping. If you generally do all your shopping at Coles or Woolworths they are very handy to have. One feature I’d like to see is prices next to the shopping list so you can see what the total will be before you hit the shops and adjust the list accordingly.
Woolworths
- store locator
- scan-to-list – allows you to scan items at home when they run out and adds them to your shopping list
- list of specials
- recipe database – lets you add all ingredients to the shopping list
- best feature – organises your shopping list by aisle according to your local Woolies’ layout
- store locator
- list of specials
- scan-to-list
- recipe database
- allows you to create a list but only using the specials at that time
- store locator
Yahoo 7 food
The Yahoo 7 Food app is a collection of recipes from magazines and top chefs. I love that it’s very visual and all the menus have pictures making it super simple to find what you’re looking for. This app also lets you save recipes to your ‘recipe book’ and add items to a shopping list. It would be great if all the lists talked to each other!
Taste of summer
This app is made by Taste, one of my favourite recipe websites. The best feature of this app (in my opinion) is the ‘inspire me’ button. All you have to do is shake it and it will display a random recipe that could be tonight’s dinner. This one is nicely set out and all recipes include photos. It also has the option to save recipes to your favourites and displays the list by name with an image.
Epicurious
Epicurious is another app choc-full of recipes – over 35 000 to be more precise. It features all sorts of recipes that can be filtered by the ingredients you have on hand, cuisine, dietary requirements or you can use the search function. Like the other recipe apps, you can create a list of favourites and add ingredients to the shopping list. You can also email recipes straight from the app.
Urbanspoon
This is a great app for finding a restaurant in a location you’re not familiar with. You can select the type of cuisine and the price range (or leave them both open) and it suggests restaurants in the area that meet your criteria. It shows reviews, photos, links to a map and you can ring the restaurant from in the app.
Tripadvisor
You might think it’s strange to see Trip Advisor on a list of food apps but it’s actually really helpful to find restaurants anywhere in the world. We used it traveling around Europe last year and found the most adorable little Italian restaurant in a town in Italy that we never would have found had it not been for Trip Advisor. I’ve also used it to find some restaurants in Brisbane. Travelers seem to have a knack for hunting out hidden gems.
There you have it – my favourite food-related apps. What about you? What are your favourite food apps? Are you addicted to your iPhone too?
