Slide To Buy Uses Lock Screen To Check Off Items
Slide To Buy ($1.99) by Alexandru Halmagean puts reminder messages on your lock screen.
This app takes advantage of one of iOS 5’s offerings, Notification Center. Make shopping or to-do lists, and check them off from either inside the app, or from your lock screen.
Inside the app you can add lists, and then add to it the items you need to buy. The developers were kind enough to include a number row in the keyboard, considering how often you’re likely to enter numbers.
Once you’re done with your list, press the Sleep/Wake button and the list appears in Notification Center. Each notification item can have only four rows under it. What’s handy is that each item has a slide to unlock button that will check the item off the list. Depending on how big your list grows, you can only go up to 44 items (11 notifications max, with four rows each).
The main drawback I see to this app, though, is that you always end up back in the app. For example, checking an item in Notification Center takes you to the app. You have to be inside the app in order to push it out, too.
However, this app could be handy if your screen times out while inside the app. Say, for example, that you’re at the mall, and you have items you need to buy from a store on the first level, but the next store is on the second level. Obviously your screen will time out between the two stores.
Another benefit is that you can view your items in Notification Center from within any app. Simply slide the Notification Screen down and you’ll see your lists with items. Selecting a list will take you back into Slide To Buy.
Checking items off from the lock screen is a good use of Notification Center, however it just seems like too narrow of a need to really be useful.
