App Aims: Santa’s Little Helper In The Palm Of Your Hand

Reviewer’s Comments
Get your jolly on and get organized. The Better Christmas List by Andrew Grant will help you spread the cheer and stick to your budget in this festive holiday shopping app. Finding the perfect gift for friends and family is almost as challenging as sticking to a budget during the gift giving season. The Better Christmas List is just the tool to help Santa’s chief elf (you) monitor the festive financial resources and keep those goodies secret until it’s time for the big reveal.

To start with, you add the names of the giftees, items to be given and allotted budgetary amounts. The app allows you to organize your gift list by groups that you specify such as Family, Friends, Party, Neighbors and so on. The app then tracks your progress by means of three status buttons: an empty shopping cart represents gifts that need to be purchased, a full shopping cart means the present has been bought and a stack of brown paper packages means you’ve shipped or delivered the parcel. Each individual on your gift list has a details page where you record gift ideas, prices and informational notes. When you add a gift to the person, you also include the cost of the present which the app then subtracts from that group’s budget. The main screen of the app displays the days left before the jolly holiday, number of gifts remaining to be purchased, status of your budget and the breakdown of each group. A quick glance at this page will tell you how much you’ve spent, funds still available and the status of each recipient’s gift shown as a screened empty stocking next to their name which changes to red when the gift is purchased and dons a bit of holly when the process is complete.

We liked the app very much. Getting a handle on the navigation in the app was a bit challenging but not a difficult obstacle. The look and feel of the app is festive without being overdone and cheesy. A missing feature is being able to designate and budget for each person on the gift list. Currently, your gift-giving funds are kept in a pool for each group but you can’t get any more specific than that.

Check out our iPhone 3G review, music and movie download reviews as well as our other iPhone App reviews to help you get the most out of your iPhone.