Filed under: iPhone, App Store, iPod touch
First Look: Shelf Life
There are many iPhone applications geared towards helping you shop at the grocery store, but none of them can track how old your food in the fridge is. A new application called Shelf Life [iTunes link] hopes to help you out in this area. Shelf Life keeps an inventory of your perishable groceries and, based on the date each is added to the list, displays either a green or red bubble beside it. The color will let you know if the item is okay to eat or not. Adding an item to the application is as easy as taping the "+" button in the upper right-hand corner -- once you start typing a name, the application will predict what you are trying to add. The predictive typing is based on other user input, as are the expiration times.
Overall, this application is extremely solid, and allows the user to quickly input items and see what food is about to expire. With the economic times we're in, everyone is trying to save, and this application could definitely help you achieve this goal. Shelf Life is now available on the App Store for $1.99. You can also check out our gallery of screenshots.
Gallery: First Look: Shelf Life
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
justin said 4:19PM on 10-23-2008
You need an iPhone app to help you figure out how old your groceries are? This is waaaay overkill.
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Squid7085 said 4:22PM on 10-23-2008
Its not to know when, it's for when you are at the store and you want to make ham and cheese sandwiches, but you know you have ham, you can make sure the ham is still good so you don't have to buy more. I can't tell you how many times I have bought one ingredient only to have the other ingredient have gone bad.
Adam said 6:17PM on 10-23-2008
I waste at least one piece of food a week.
If I didn't, I wouldn't need Shelf Life. But I do, so I do.
Squid7085 said 4:20PM on 10-23-2008
Digging the BioHazard logo, I assume Red is when it is going bad and the BIoHazard means there are trees growing on it, I could use this App just for milk...
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Adam said 6:22PM on 10-23-2008
Exactly, red == just went bad.
There's actually a nice spectrum from green to yellow to red for more granularity.
Galley said 4:41PM on 10-23-2008
If it's not fuzzy, then it's good enough to eat!
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Sean Flanagan said 5:43PM on 10-23-2008
Unless it's a block of good cheese, in which case you just shave the fuzzies off of it and it's good to go.
Simon Arch said 2:35AM on 10-24-2008
If it's just a corner, or an edge, hack that chunk off and eat the rest. But if it's sporting fuzz on 1/4 of the surface or more, toss it. What you see on the surface of the cheese is the tip of the iceberg. By the time it's growing fuzz, the mould has thoroughly infiltrated the cheese. Unless the mould in question is penicillium roqueforti, you probably don't want to eat it.
Adam said 4:42PM on 10-23-2008
It would be better if it had the data in there about when it expires. I don't know how many times my roommates and I are like... how long does chicken last, or garlic, etc... just put in when you bought it.
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Adam said 6:24PM on 10-23-2008
That's exactly what it does.
The expiration information is gather through an averaging of user input. The more users, the more accurate the information will be.
Michael Wilde said 4:48PM on 10-23-2008
I'll tell ya what.. Wil Shipley's guys should really build Delicious Kitchen... I'd pay like 75 bucks for something like that... Let me photo the stuff as i buy/put away, let me use my iphone to take photos, manage the inventory of my kitchen.. do some text recognition like Evernote does...
Iphone as text data entry device blows. I like the idea of Shelf Life.. but can't do it.
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Kevlar said 5:01PM on 10-23-2008
iPhone is not the best for text entry, I'll admit, but that hasn't stopped me from starting to write a novel on it.
I'm serious, too. Not joking in the slightest.
WriteRoom in landscape is decent. I can type fairly fast, and correct mistakes on my PC later. It is nice to be able to write wherever and whenever inspiration hits.
Adding a list of groceries? A trifle. (heh)
SpinThis! said 6:05PM on 10-23-2008
@ Michael: That would be interesting. I have to agree... the iPhone really isn't suited to this kind of thingit might be more useful to be a client in a bigger scheme, kind of like automatically syncing with one of your Macs for the data before you go shopping, etc. Then when you come home, you drop your receipt into a receipt reader and it does the data input and ocr for you.
wayne hastings said 4:48PM on 10-23-2008
Milk? Milk doesn't go bad, it just changes state.
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judd said 5:05PM on 10-23-2008
I thought the story about this app was a joke! Why on earth would anyone go to the trouble of recording expiration dates on their iPhone? It's far easier just to look in the fridge.
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Adam said 6:25PM on 10-23-2008
Most of the time you don't need to record the expiration dates... shelf life already knows.
Digaos said 5:19PM on 10-23-2008
A useful thing for these grocery apps would be an online list.
So when I'm at work and my wife needs something, she can go online and update the list instead of sending me an e-mail with all the stuff I need to buy on my way home...
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Adam said 6:40PM on 10-23-2008
Excellent.
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SurferGirl said 8:15PM on 10-23-2008
It sometimes feels like a pain to enter all the groceries I've bought, but in the end I have to say it's worth it. Just had this app for a week and already it's reminded me of a few items I forgot I had. Good if you're forgetful like me!
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Ranger said 8:47PM on 10-23-2008
I double buy groceries all of the time. You are at the store thinking about a certain meal you are going to make in a few days and you think, "Do we already have chicken breasts?" You are unsure so you buy some more just to be safe...and you end up having way too many. This should help that.
More importantly, you buy roast beef to make a stew, stick it in the fridge because you are going to make the stew tomorrow. Then a day or two passes where something comes up and you end up going out to eat with friends instead of making the stew. Is the meat still good? I have no idea, but this program does.
I think it's a great looking app.
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