Review of the AllertMe App

Introduction

Research shows that an estimated 15 million people in America suffer from food allergies. There are eight major foods that most people are allergic to – fish, milk, eggs, peanuts, soybeans, tree nuts, shellfish and wheat. The Food and Drugs Agency requires food manufacturers to put labels on their products specifying what their products contain. Most importantly, they are required to highlight specific allergen ingredients like nuts. The requirements are so strict that companies need to be upfront about the possibility of cross contamination. The FDA monitors potential hazards like glass in beverages and often issues recalls on products that are found to be dangerous. Most people who suffer from allergies have to be careful of what they eat but this in not always easy because some products always seem to slip by undetected and information only comes out about dangerous allergens they contain later on when they already have made it into stores. As hard as the FDA tries to keep people informed, information doesn't always get to the people that need it in time.

AllertMe® is an app that was created specifically to provide urgent information about products with allergens on phones, tablets or desktop. A company called Alllergy Defender LLC in partnership with cross crown created the app. What the app does is collate information on allergens, product recalls and warning about cross contaminations from the FDA and sorts it out to according to specific allergic conditions.

Features and Price

AllertMe can be downloaded on iOS and Android platforms for $4.99. Set up is easy. All you have to do is enter what you are allergic to. These could be foods or specific ingredients like spices and AllertMe® will search for important information and give you updates on which products you might need to avoid. Once a recall or warning has been issued on specific allergens, if there is a pertinent alert the Allert message will appear on your screen as a blue bubble. AllertMe® goes further by providing the picture of the allergen containing product as well as the UPC number.

Advantages

This is a life saving app that could be very useful for people who need to know more about what they are eating, that they won't be consuming something that could potentially kill them. The fact that someone who has first hand knowledge of what allergens can do means developed this is important. It means the developer has a personal interest to make the app work.

The app is easy to download on your mobile devices and desktop

It brings urgent information from the FDA to people who need it and will benefit from it.

Disadvantages

· The app is available on Google Play store but since it only pulls information from the USA it is pretty useless to someone who doesn't live in the U.S. It might bring comfort to parents who have children with severe allergies but unless the parent is on hand all the time, it gets hard to check what the child eats. The app is designed to be easy to use but its focus on kids assuming that children will have their own smartphones to enable them to get alerts.

· There are numerous sites dedicated to food safety on the net and they offer email notifications to people who register on their sites and the information is more concise, this app will need to pull information from other sites instead of just from the FDA.

· It would be infinitely useful to engage parents and people with allergies to enable them to share information and experiences.

· The developers have not disclosed the amount of time the $4.99 buys you. Is it for a month, a year, or for life?

· The list of allergens is limited to food it gives little mention on other allergens like chili. It does not mention fruit allergies.

What are people saying?

The general consensus is that it is a very useful, life-changing app and will go a long way in helping avoid potentially harmful foods. The question the people ask is what to do with recalled food? The obvious answer is to return the purchases but that can be a frustrating exercise.

Verdict

The is a life changing app. Having it on your phone can save you life or the life of a loved one with food allergies.

The post Review of the AllertMe App appeared first on CruzApp.

A Review of the Amazon Prime Now App

Amazon has a new Amazon Prime Now app, which has made it very easy, cheap and fast to get what you require from the comfort of your home or office. You can now upgrade to cooler items for your personal use and home in just an hour by doing one or two swipes on your mobile.

Shoppers with the Amazon Prime Now app on the smartphones can log into their Amazon account and select among thousands of products, including leather bags, ice cream, bread and cereal among others.

After adding items to the cart, the shopper might choose either the one-hour paid service which charges $7.99 or the two-hour free delivery service. Your item then goes on its way to you and can be tracked using the app. Clients love the convenience of having items delivered right to their doors in such a short time.

Users are also benefiting more from this premium app. One can opt for delivery services from the nearby grocery outlets. Amazon has teamed up with mid-level and small grocery chains which makes it very convenient to get your favorite things easily.

However, before you make an order for a new refrigerator, understand that only daily essentials are available to purchase through the service, which includes batteries, cereal, paper towels, USB cables, toys, cleaning supplies and chargers. These items can be ordered through the Amazon Prime Now app, available on both Android and iOS, through the Amazon App Store, Apple App Store and Google Play.

The Amazon Prime Now App is entirely different from Amazon Shopping, and the only way to enjoy the service is by getting the app. If you log into Amazon website to place an order for immediate delivery, you are directed to this app instead. Mainly, the shopping experience is the same. You are offered basically whatever products Amazon can keep in stock at the local warehouse.

Once you have filled your shopping cart, the Prime Now app asks you to select a delivery window. Here, if you are ordering between 8AM and 10PM your options are paying an extra $7.99 to have your order delivered in less than an hour, or pick a series of 2-hour windows to have your product delivered for free.

You will also be prompted to pick a dollar amount to tip the driver, with a default of $5 selected for you at checkout. After you have completed checkout, the app will process your order and you get an email just like the regular Amazon purchases letting you know that your package is on the way.

At this stage in the purchase, the Amazon Prime Now App turns into a tracking app. You get a map that shows where your package is coming from, the name of the courier, and a tiny purple dot showing the given driver along their route. When your package is 10 minutes from its destination, you will get a text message telling you that the package is close by. This is crucial as your package does not show up in the classic Amazon box with a smile on it. If you have ordered smaller items, you get a paper bag with all things ordered collected inside, but anything that cannot fit in an ordinary grocery bag is delivered in the packaging the product was provided to Amazon in. You or someone known to you has to be there to accept the items from the courier directly.

Amazon Prime Now has a yearly subscription of $99. Subscribers automatically acquire unlimited free 48-hour shipping on more than twenty million items across different product categories. Extra perks include one year free same-day delivery on more than a million items in 14 metro areas, boundless streaming of many TV episodes and movies, over a million songs and over a thousand playlists plus many stations with Prime Music, free secure, unlimited photo storage in Amazon Cloud Drive as well as Prime Photos. Deliveries are available from 8 am to midnight, 7 days a week, via the Prime Now App.

Amazon Prime Now could be another step forward in online retail. The service promises delivery of various popular products in just an hour. The Amazon Prime Now app is the greatest development ever. With this app, you ran out of garbage bags, cleaning supplies or sea salt and you will have it on your doorstep minutes later.

The post A Review of the Amazon Prime Now App appeared first on CruzApp.

A Review of the Periscope App

Within just a short time, mobile livestreaming has found a home in Periscope. This app allows you to broadcast live video to people across the globe. Once you are live, your followers get instant notification and they can join, comment, as well as send you hearts in real time. Periscope is a great app especially in today’s life when things like taking pictures of your lunch or breakfast are celebrated and shared by many people on social media.

The Periscope app is designed to take into consideration bite-sized streaming sessions, and controlled environments in which to look closely into people’s day to day activities. Whether this is a trend or not is immaterial, as one thing that we all agree is, digital interaction is here for good.

To gain access to browse the app, you have to link your account with Twitter. However, with Periscope, you have the option to follow everybody you follow on Twitter or not. You can also search for Periscope users without having to follow them on Twitter. Once you are logged into Periscope, you are greeted with a relaxing interface that is user-friendly by way of tabs, and you will be viewing your initial stream in an instant.

Through the Periscope

When you host a stream, you see what is seen by your viewers filling the screen of your phone. Before you begin broadcasting, you can choose to toggle your location info, send out a Tweet with a browser link, or even host a personal session with only selected followers. There is a feature that lets hosts restrict commenting and only have viewers who also follow the host to comment. This is a good way to keep conversations focused because if somebody says something disproportionate, you just tap their comment and block them.

During a stream, a tiny number at the bottom shows the total number of viewers. Viewers in Periscope enjoy the same clean interface enjoyed by the stream’s hosts, but with different tools available for them. Tapping on the screen brings forth little hearts, and you can tap away to your heart’s content.

Viewers can also leave comments, which emerge as smart little bubbles which disappear after some seconds. The host cannot type back, and has to speak out loud to reply. This is actually sort of a neat interaction, and it ensures that the comments remain tidy. Viewers can watch periscope streams in their browsers, as well, though they cannot interact with the host, or see hearts or comments.

If you wish, you can save the streams you make at the end of your Periscope stream. Also, you can delete streams saved to Periscope so as to prevent others from replaying your streams. However, you cannot embed the streams saved by Periscope on its servers. Unfortunately, hearts and user comments are not visible in Periscope videos saved to your phone, though they do show in the videos saved to Periscope online.

What Is Seen On Periscope?

Periscope has views of various things from people’s homes, offices, parties and dogs, to disasters. Here, viewers are able to see several streams on things like making news, which offers multiple angles from Periscope users all around the city. With Periscope, I finally understand why live streaming can be very compelling, and its potential in changing our online interactions. With Periscope, it is possible to see the world unfold right now, and then watch it all again later.

The major reason why Periscope stands out compared to its rival mobile live streaming apps is its ability to save streams, which gives every stream life outside the moment. In addition to this, Periscope is highly polished, extremely user-friendly, and has worked to fast introduce vital new features, such as highlighting Periscope feeds from your friends and limiting comments to followers.

However, I am generally wary of mobile live streaming. It is now possible to broadcast live videos of people we are not familiar with, without their knowledge. This can be done with exceptional ease and it would have deadly consequences. This is not to say these apps are doomed. They are here to stay in today’s digital interaction world; care should be taken though.

In conclusion, the Periscope app, with the right tools, might end up becoming (if it is not already) the ultimate way of streaming on mobile devices much like Twitter is the king of shorthand communication. Even for those who are not big live streaming fans, the Periscope app makes it straightforward to see the appeal.

The post A Review of the Periscope App appeared first on CruzApp.

5 Time-Saving Apps to Take Care of Chores

Getting chores done around the house is not always an easy task. You might have everything arranged in the order in which they should happen, but the truth is that not all things get done as planned. This could be due to several reasons. You have your children or even grandchildren to keep up with, your job to be concerned about and hobbies that must take precedence from time to time. However, the good news is that the tech-savvy society of today can help. All you need is to know which apps to have in your phone or tablet to help you save a lot of time doing chores. Here is a look at 5 time-saving apps to help you take care of chores.

1. Chorma

This is an app that can be used by all household members interactively. If every member in the house gets this app into their iPad or phone, they can see all the chores that need to be completed and then pick the ones that they would like to complete. With Chorma, every chore will have its due date listed and the number of points earned by finishing the task. You can have all the house chores allocated to members in your household.

The points earned from completing different tasks can be redeemed for something that is agreed to by every member in the house such as a movie, family pizza night, cookies or anything you choose. With this app, everyone gets more time to do their own things since the household chores are shared among every household member and will not be left to one person. Chorma is a free app for users of Apple devices.

2. Brightnest

This is another great app to help you save a lot of time when doing chores. Brightnest offers tips and propositions on different housekeeping topics, for example making your towels fluffier, organizing your closet and cleaning out the refrigerator among others. It has eight categories: green, handy, creative, savvy, healthy, curious, hungry and clean. Within these eight categories, each has multiple suggestions. Every suggestion is illustrated in a colorful card and is divided into steps, making the tasks doable in a lesser amount of time. If you follow the suggestions given by the app closely, you are sure to save some time when completing various chores around the house. The Brightnest app is obtainable for free on iOS and Android.

3. Zillow Digs

This is a very inspirational app to help you when you are planning for various repair projects around the house. If you are looking to complete a kitchen or bathroom remodeling project, then Zillow Digs is a great app for you. It allows you to browse from actual examples and estimate what it will take to recreate a similar look in your house. This saves you time as you get actual estimates from similar projects that have been done before. Zillow Digs is a free app for iOS.

4. Chore Checklist Lite

This is an app that can be used to make cleaning the house less time consuming for both Apple and Android users. Sometimes, all you require to motivate you to complete tasks around the house and save time while at it, is simply a checklist ready and reminders set. You can set up this app so that you list out all chores that need to be done with dates and reminders for when they should be completed. You can also go for the regular version which will cost you $1.50, and it unlocks several task lists.

5. Fairshare

This app is free for Android and Apple users and it is similar to Chorma, in that it allows the interaction of household members with each other as they list, assign and conduct household tasks. Every task is assigned points, which can either be used as a team approach or a competition. Fairshare users in the same house are also able to send each other private messages within the app.

Using one of these time-saving apps can help you remember the chores that need to be done around the house, when they should be done as well as how to do them, thus saving you a lot of time to enjoy life by reading books, playing games, watching movies and doing anything else that makes you happy.

The post 5 Time-Saving Apps to Take Care of Chores appeared first on CruzApp.

welcome

blog

Comparing the Lyft, Uber, and Sidecar Apps

In recent years, applications such as Uber, Lyft and Sidecar – which offer an affordable alternative to traditional taxi or cab rides – have increased in popularity.  If you’re considering downloading an app such as Uber, Lyft or Sidecar, continue reading to discover some of the differences between the three apps, as well as some of the advantages and disadvantages of each app.

Requesting a ride:

When you request a ride using Uber or Lyft, you’ll automatically get matched with a driver.  Whilst all of Uber and Lyft’s drivers have passed background checks, you don’t have the option of choosing your own driver.  On the other hand, if you request a ride with Sidecar you’ll be presented with a list of drivers who can transport you from point a to point b; you choose which one you want.  Better yet, you can sort your search results by the shortest estimated time arrival or by price.  As a bonus, if you’re impressed with your driver, Sidecar will also allow you to save your driver to a handy favorites list.

Choice of vehicles:

Should you download Uber, you’ll have the option of a luxury car or a large SUV as an alternative to requesting a standard ride.  Uber also offers a black car service, should you require a private driver to ferry you around in a high-end sedan for a day.  Like Uber, Lyft also offers an SUV option for groups of friends who are looking to travel together and require a little extra space.  Should you download Sidecar, each driver’s car model and year will be displayed, so that you can easily choose a vehicle which suits your personal preferences.

Payment:

With all three apps, you’ll be required to pay your fare using your smartphone app.  Should you book a ride with Sidecar or Lyft, you’ll manually pay your fare at the end of your ride, by pushing a few buttons.  In contrast, if you book a ride with Uber, your fare will automatically be charged to your chosen credit card, so you won’t have to lift a finger.  Better yet, you’ll also be automatically emailed a copy of your receipt.

Pricing & Promo Codes:

One of Sidecar’s biggest selling points is that your fare is pre-determined before you get picked up, so there’s no need to stress about your fare increasing every time your driver stops in traffic or at a red light.  Unfortunately, at this point in time when you book a ride with Uber or Lyft, you’ll only be given an estimate of the fare you can expect to pay.  However, neither Lyft or Uber offers a price guarantee, so you could end up paying double the amount that you were shown when you requested a ride.  If you’re new to the Lyft platform, you can get your first ride for free by using a Lyft promo code when entering your payment information.  Using a promotional discount code can help you save some money while trying out a new service.  You can use a trip estimator for Uber to understand how much your ride will cost.

Tipping:

With Uber and Sidecar there’s no need to tip your driver as your tip is already calculated into your fare, whilst if you book a ride with Lyft you can choose to tip your driver a preset sum such as $1, $2 or $5, which just one tap on your smartphone.

Looking to share a lift in order to save money?

If you’re looking for a lift in a large metropolitan city such as Los Angeles, San Francisco or New York and have the Lyft app installed on your phone, you can opt to share a ride with other Lyft users in order to save up to 60% off your Lyft fare.  Sidecar also gives users the opportunity to share a ride with a second rider in order to save 50% off their Sidecar fare.  Uber also has a carpooling option aptly named UberPool, which features the same type of savings as the other services.

Interested in tracking your ride?

The Sidecar app allows users to filter their driver results by estimated time arrival.  So if you need a little extra time to get ready, you can opt for a driver who is located 10-15 minutes away from your current location.  Better yet, Uber and Lyft both offer maps that show you exactly how far away your ride is.

At the end of the day, you can’t go wrong downloading Sidecar, Uber or Lyft as all three applications have hundreds of thousands of satisfied customers and offer value for the cost.  The app you should download depends on a variety of factors including whether or not you want to be able to choose your driver or would like the option of sharing a ride with other users.

The post Comparing the Lyft, Uber, and Sidecar Apps appeared first on CruzApp.

5 Smartphone Shopping Apps for the Holidays

The holidays are here and all of us are waiting to shop.  There are ways to do shopping without wasting time in long queues at malls, though.  To make shopping more fun, we came up with the top 5 shopping apps to save your time, money and energy, so that you can save those for your loved ones this holiday season.

1. Amazon Shopping by “Amazon Mobile LLC”

The first one is Amazon.  This application provides everything from a to z items.  It takes a minute or so to download and install the app.  It works all right on both iphone and Android, and the Windows phone as well.  After installation it asks you to sign-in or sign-up/register, but it allows browsing through without signup as well.  To start shopping, there are departments and filters.  The feature that will save the most time is the barcode scanner of Amazon.  The bar code scanner captures any bar code one scans in and finds that product in Amazon; therefore it gets easier to search a product.  Another functionality of the Amazon app is that you can share the link of a product via email, Facebook, Twitter and so on.  Moreover, they have site tutorials on how to use certain products.  For example, not sure how to use tent for the first time?  There is a tutorial for that.  It comes in really handy when deciding on whether to buy a product or not.  This app is getting more and more popular among consumers because of its easy-to-use functionality and vast range of products from different companies around the world.

2. Etsy : Handmade and Vintage Goods by “Etsy Inc.”

This app takes about 2 minutes to get downloaded and installed on a smart phone.  It gives the option to sign in with a Google or a Facebook account to personalize the app for you.  It comes in English, German, Spanish, Dutch, and Italian languages.  This gives new options to connect with the seller of an item.  So, one can be more clear on the item chosen with all of the suggestions based on selected items.  One can directly visit the shop of the seller and choose directly from there too, if preferred.  The next time he comes back to Etsy, it will be automatically organized.  Therefore it can eliminate the time of searching and browsing as well.

It even gives notifications when new items ship in from one’s favorite store.

In addition, it is also possible to have your own shop on Etsy to sell personal goods.  If an individual is looking for business or networking, he/she can connect to vendors in Events by Etsy.  The main purpose of this app is more on the casual side, so it is usually more in demand during holiday seasons.  It is all about handmade crafts and arts, renovated items and outfits which work quite well in the holiday season.

3. Zweet by “Zweet”Shopping Was Never This Sweet!

The third on the list is Zweet, mainly for getting discounts and savings on holiday shopping.  This app provides savings on shopping of all kinds, but mainly on grocery shopping.  After a user signs up, they show a number of offers on items sold by Zweet.  These offer items can be purchased from any shop.  After purchasing the discount offered item, the user has to upload the receipt of the item to Zweet.  For instance, for xyz item you get a $2.00 cash back offer.  A user can buy this xyz item from anywhere and upload the receipt to get $2.00 back from Zweet.  Moreover, the app provides notifications whenever new items get added in the offers or deals list, so users won’t miss out on the chance to make money while shopping during the holidays.  The reason people are choosing this app is to save few dollars while shopping from anywhere and everywhere as Zweet does not put restrictions on where you can or should get an item from.

4. Geek :  Smarter Shopping by “Wish Inc.”

This app – as the name says – is for smarter shopping options.  It allows you to get more done in less time.  After signing up it takes you to the general page, where users can choose a department to purchase from.  One can also find hourly deals and can save up to few percent on a deal with free delivery up to a certain amount based on the order.  The best thing about Geek is their discount offers, where one can get up to 50% – 80% lower prices than local stores on the same items.  It is because of their direct dealing with manufacturers and cutting out the cost of the middleman that they can be so beneficial to customers.  This app is especially suitable for teenagers as they use great deals of gadgets and accessories.  It also provides notifications on discounts of hourly offers and so on.

5. Wanelo by “Wanelo Inc.”

Wanelo for all smartphones takes only a minute to download and install and asks for signup using Facebook, Gmail or any email account.  This app can be suitable for long term use because it asks for the interests of the individual and customizes the shopping items based on user choices.  It uses a concept based on the following example:  If one follows person A, then the style of person A will be added to panel of those who followed him/her.  The best things to buy from Wanelo are clothes; it gives descriptions on size with inches and general size tags.  Moreover, it narrows down choices based on what an individual’s interest is, which in turn is based on who or what that individual is following.  Wanelo targets all age groups with vast varieties of fashion, accessories, decors, furniture and gadgets too at very low prices.

There are a number of other applications as well which provide similar and different functionalities for shopping during the holidays.  Examples include Wish, Our Groceries, and Shopping List (which gets the list of products ready for you each time you want to shop) and many more.  It should be known that every app listed will be accessing data from our smartphones in more ways, including the use of cookies, photos, contact numbers etc.  Therefore, it is always better to know what data the app is using from your smartphone for security and privacy purposes.

One can choose whatever app(s) best suit his/her own needs.  In order to make shopping more reliable and easy, it is always better to go with best ones of course.  Let us know what are your favorite shopping apps are.  Happy Holidays to All !

The post 5 Smartphone Shopping Apps for the Holidays appeared first on CruzApp.