Just in time for Black Friday and the holiday-shopping season to follow, Yipit has released an iOS app that aggregates offers from Groupon, Living Social, and over 800 other daily deals sites. Like most daily deals sites, the Yipit app works best if you live in a major metro area. the app is free, however, and lets you select categories so that you get a manageable list of deals to sift through.
After you launch the app, it’ll ask you to allow it to know your location. If you allow it, you won’t have to then select your city (or the nearest large city) from the list. In my case, I’m located in Concord, NH, and the closest city to me that Yipit listed was Boston. (One reason I signed up for Living Social is that it has a Southern New Hampshire category, which will occasionally surface a deal in my town or the surrounding area.)
It will then ask for your e-mail address, which serves as your log-in. Don’t worry, you can limit or block Yipit from e-mailing you deals. Before you can so do, however, you’ll need to hit the green subscribe button to start hunting for deals.
After signing up, the first order of business is selecting categories of interest. Yipit has a fairly long list of categories, which are conveniently grouped by subject.
OK, back to e-mail management. If you click on the Account button in the lower-right corner, you can choose to receive e-mails daily, once a week, twice a week, or never. also from the account page, you can add and remove categories to follow. you can also add your address, though the only cities you can choose are from the 100 or so that Yipit tracks. so, while I could add my street address or ZIP code, Yipit maintained I lived in Boston, the nearest Yipit city to me.
Of the many ZIP codes in Boston, 03301 is not one of them.
(Credit:Matt Elliott/CNET)
If you tap on the my Deals button in the lower-left corner, you’ll be able to see either a list or a map view of the deals in your chosen categories. Click on a deal from the list or the red button icon on a map to view the details of a particular deal. you can then tap the green button to purchase the deal or the blue button to e-mail yourself the deal, including who is offering the deal and the time left before it expires. you can also e-mail the deal to a friend using the Share button in the upper-right corner. When you tap the green button, you are either taken to a deal site’s Web page, which isn’t always a great experience on aniPhone, or to a mobile version of a deal site.
(Credit:Matt Elliott/CNET)
If you want to browse for deals outside of your chosen categories, click on the all Deals button along the bottom of the screen. Here, you can browse all categories, via large topic area such as Fitness, or drill down down to a specific category such as pilates, yoga, martial arts, and so on.
And if you want to browse deals near your current location–good for when you are traveling, I suppose–you can tap the near me button to see a list or map view of a deal that is potentially lurking around the corner.
Yipit is a new app, and a few wrinkles still need to be ironed out. For example, the list view for my Deals was blank; I had to use the Map view to browse deals in the categories I chose. also, the map was slow to update when I changed categories, though I doubt the typical users will change categories with the same frequency as I did when testing out the app today.
Do you have a go-to daily deals app or site? If so, please share what it is and why it’s your favorite in the comments below.
(Via AddictiveTips)