Apple Thoughts: Comparing Apples to Oranges and Anything Else

Figure 1: Yes, we're loading!

It's happened to all of us. We go into the supermarket to buy a can of soup, and there in front of us is Progresso at $1.29 for 12 ounces and Campbell's at $1.79 for 14 ounces. How do you compare the two? Well, if you're like me, most of the time you don't even bother and you just buy the soup you like better. Apparently, someone at Illiumsoft got tired of whipping out the iPhone's calculator just to figure simple stuff like this, and designed an application to do the work for them.

Figure 2: I couldn't do this one in my head. Could you?

I readily admit I'm not the best at math nor do I have an excessive amount of patience, so an application like this is right up my alley. In looking at Apples 2 Oranges, I took it to the grocery store a few times and did some comparisons there's no way I could've done in my head or would've bothered to do on the calculator. As is usually the case with this sort of new-found knowledge, the results were often surprising. The UI makes it easy to use because there aren't a whole lot of extraneous buttons and controls and the styling, while not haivng a huge effect on the application itself, does look really cool.

Figure 4: See? The lower number isn't always better!

One of the hardest parts of counting calories is the fact that most nutritional labels are utterly useless for doing so. They'll usually give you all or nothing type results, and just because they're both canned peaches doesn't mean that they tell you the same sized servings. In this example, the serving size is different as well as the calories. Your first reaction might be that the 120-calorie can is a better nutritional value, but it actually isn't, because proportionally that same serving would be fewer calories on the other can.

Again, this isn't something you can't do on a calculator, but it's something you most likely wouldn't do on a calculator. If you're counting calories, this sort of information is priceless!

And make no mistake, Apples 2 Oranges provides tons of conversions built in including distances, ingredients, volume, making it a pretty complete application for all your conversion needs. At $1.99 in the App Store, the money you save by being an educated shopper will probably outweigh the cost in the first few uses.

Their claim is that you'll shop smarter, save money, and eat better. When you consider how lofty those claims are, it's pretty cool that they're actually true!

Vincent Ferrari is an Apple fan, videoblogger, blogger, writer, and all-around geek from the Bronx. He works in the IT Department of a cellular phone company that shall not be named, and lives in a very comfortable apartment with his lovely wife, two lovely cats, three Macs, two iPhones, and God-knows-how-many iPods of varying age.

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