BargainMate helps you discover latest bargains from OzBargain, the latest 1.2 version comes with push notification support, please consider rate this app in app store :-) Thanks.
Features:
Offer ends on Monday.
No Android support? FAIL.
All the neg votes for your comment are clearly from sheep iPhone owners ;)
It does say iOS client in the title.
No Windows Phone support is even more fail.
Lack of ability to login and comment is not great. I would also prefer to see clicked links launched in safari (or at least the option to do so).
The reading layout is good - but the app has less features and provides no advantage over m.ozbargain.com.au (except push notifications I guess). If you can replicate the mobile site, I'll download it again. Until then, delete!
I think it would hard for app developers to mimic the ozbargain mobile site, because
Which is why we have been hesitated doing an official app - just can't justify the effort at this stage.
Hi Scotty
If you are interested, I could write a RESTful API spec for OZBargain.
For scraping the main page, I used XPath, actually I never changed that algorithem, it worked well, but API will make it much easier…
I've had logging in and commenting working in my WP7 app for a while, and it seems to be fairly stable. You could try implementing the same way:
I request /user/login with POST data of:
edit[name]=username&edit[pass]=password&op=Log in&edit[form_id]=user_login
then I look for the first element of id "title" to see if the user is logged in
I store the cookies created by this request on application close/open, then use /ozbapi/popup/user to determine if the user is still logged in (session hasnt expired, etc) when the app is reloaded.
Its pretty easy to see how commenting works, once you pass a valid session id with node requests, you get a forum token, then just POST request /comment/reply/NodeID with the token to post.
I've been using this since the last OzB update (October-ish last year?), and it hasnt failed yet. If things fail, I'm sure the users will be understanding as long as the issue gets fixed quickly.
Would be great if we could get a developers API though Scotty!
Another cool feature you could look into adding is the ability for users to add keywords, and then get notified if the title of a bargain in the RSS feed contains that keyword. I do this client-side, the phone downloads and parses the RSS feed every 30 minutes, though if you could get it server-side that would be even better! I'm looking for an SSD myself, so I added the "SSD" keyword, and get to see all the SSD deals before they make it onto the main page or sell out. You could also display on the applications icon how many bargains matching the users keywords were found since the application was last opened.
weesals, kudos! Thanks for sharing your insight research.
Thanks for all the effort keeping it running Scotty!
I honestly don't see the benefit of a full app. I get notifications via the rss. Everything else that I need is on the mobile site already there.
Personally I think twitter plus the mobile site does a really good job, dont see a need for an app as such.
Thanks scotty, was always curious why there wasn't an app before.
same love apps for anything, guess its the simplicity thats convenient
If you want all of your OzBargain goodness pushed to your phone, you could get a Twitter client that supports such notifications (like Boxcar), and subscribe to the OzBargain Twitter feed.
Works a charm for me! But kudos to the OP for developing a tailor made solution.
Do I need a twitter account to follow @ozbargainrt with boxcar? I've set it up, but not seeing any messages or notifications.
Nah, no Twitter account required. Just select "Twitter Follow" from "Add a Service" on the start menu, then follow the OzBargain realtime feed you mentioned above. That should get you going…
Cheers nutcase. All up and running. Problem was I was following @ozbargainrt instead of @ozbargain.
There is an option to open links in Safari- it's hidden in 'more' option, then click on the '…' to open in Safari :)
I'm sure those who have missed the $20 G27 DSE deal would love the push notification feature.
I like the idea of push notifications. Never miss a bargain again
Does this come in android version?
As a small time app developer I'd be interested in looking at an (Android) app for this, I might find out who I need to talk to about it.
+1, I believe there are more Android user than iPhone users.
Duplicate
BargainDesk+ gives me access to lots of deal sites in one App, including OzBargain.
The iPhone versions are free, but don't provide Push notifications.
this is pretty stupid.. are you saying, you want us to pay for an unofficial ozbargain app(after this weekend)…
Silly app, people who go on ozbargain are trying to save the dollar… they will go the extra mile to use safari to access ozbargain instead of buying an app..
Nobody asked you to buy it, nobody asked you to use it, so what did this app offence you? I am sure you have better way to access OzBargain, but this doesn't make this app useless. Please respect other people's choice.
Clearly someone doesn't know once you download an app its free for life
Clearly not an iOS user.
I have an Android you know …
there is an app called Ozbargain Free on Android market. No push notifications though, we can all comment to suggest this feature!?
You think anyone would pay for this?
People did
Can I please have contact details? I have a bridge to off-load, going cheap.
*I should make clear that I am in no way suggesting that said application is not without value, simply that when one can browse the website or get updates in other ways (Twitter, news feeds) I cannot see why anyone would pay for such an app.
I like the mobile site best :/
Thanks dong!
As an Ozbargainer I would not purchase or even recommend this app if we have to pay when we still could browse for free using Safari, but I'll give you a plus for your effort in making this apps and also for the push notification from this apps.
Not bad, not bad at all.
Thanks and I just wanted to know what are the criteria for sending out a push notification on a popular bargain (ie. send notification when a deal gets 50 positive votes). In future versions you might want to make the criteria for the notifications to be user defined or editable in some way.
by the time it gets 50 votes it will have sold out:)
i couldn't agree with you more Sir.
Yes, I agree. The push notification is often coming several hours after the deal is posted and this is way too late for the best deals.
Mn….like the push function, but i still prefer to view it on the mobile site…
I've always been scared of an app like this. I could imagine checking my phone every time it buzzed just to save a buck or two. Ozbargain would become MY LIFE ;)
I am already doing it. Using ios app "PUSH". even while I am sleeping when it buzzes a new deal and wakes me up, I cant help but look at the deal on the iphone screen. :(
I love ozbargain, but I started spending more money since I have been introduced to Ozbaragin. :)
since this morning it's only pushed 2 deals for me. Layout is nice (except you cant open images' links) but push feature doesn't really work.
It only pushes front page deals, do you really want all new deals notifications? that's really noisy.
I would have thought that's the purpose of push notifications. I want to be notified before things get on the main page and sold out. Can you at least give it as an option for users to decide?
Yes, that sounds ok, so user can subscribe to difference channels, but this will cost more on my server, I will see what I can do in next release.
that's not a valid reason to neg.
nice app
Crashes and immediately closes on startup for me.
I get as far as selecting a city but no matter which one I choose the app just closes. Then when I restart it just closes right away.
Have tried rebooting iPhone and reinstalling app.
Selecting a city? Are you sure you are not talking about BargainDesk?
Was working for a week or so for me.
Now crashes each time I try to open.
Reinstalled and rebooted phone
No city selection for me tho.
Edit: just comment below. I am on a 4s
This app does not start up for me. Immediately closes. iPhone 3G.
Sorry, 3G is no longer supported.
Well it would be nice of the requirements to mention this instead of wasting our time.
“our time"???
who are you representing, man?!
Dude, this is a free offer to community! What about my time working on this app? Shall I calculate my hourly rate?
Even Apple no longer support iPhone 3G, why blaming the app developer?
I see a few Android users here. Might I suggest "Bargain Deal Alerts" for something similar to this app (while it's not push you can set update frequency) or "BargainDesk" if you want to browse using a prettier interface.
Both these apps also check other websites.
What advantage does this have over the RSS feed? I mean, obviously you don't get push notifications with RSS; instead it's checking the feed every x minutes. But since you're not getting push notifications from OzBargain itself, surely you're only scraping the site every y minutes anyway, right?
(This isn't intended as a criticism, I'm just curious).
The advantage is user don't need to know what's RSS and how to setup notification, there are a lot of people they don't have such knowledge or they do but don't want to spend time set it up. As I comment earlier, this app is just an option.
I am finding bargainmate wont refresh/update with latest deals when i pull down in any of the tabs (home, new deals, etc)
So I have to close it down (rather than just pressing the home button) and re-opening the app which seems to refresh it - anyone else have the same issue?
Hi mrshorty
I am the developer, I gonna look into this issue soon, a bit busy lately, but I will resolve it.
now the app just crashes everytime i open it
Have tried rebooting, re-installing but the app still crashes
Downloaded it on my iPhone and iPad and am having some issues.
Can't click on picture on the iPhone?
It keeps going to portrait mode on the iPad, even when I look the screen in landscape mode?