Popular to-do list software Any.do now has a smart grocery list feature within its mobile app that you can share with friends and family to make shopping more efficient. Algorithms naturally sort food items by category such as “fruits & vegetables” and “dairy & cheese,” to keep you from having to visit the same aisle twice. They will also suggest grocery items based on previous things you’ve purchased. So if you always get a loaf of bread with some olive oil, Any.do will remind you the next time you go shopping.
While the feature initially rolled out on iOS three months ago and was spotted on Any.do’s blog post, it’s coming to Android today and fully expanding to all iOS devices. Any.do estimates that while only 30 percent of iOS users could access the feature before, the figure will be 100 percent as of today.
You’re able to add an unlimited number of smart grocery lists, and Any.do already works with Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant, so you can add items using voice command through various devices. Once you’ve got your list, you can then share it with others and sync the list across all shared members. I could see this helping to prevent situations where two roommates buy the same hand soap or where each person assumes the other bought eggs, so no one buys eggs.
The smart grocery list claims to help you save time, but these are all tasks you can accomplish yourself with a bit of quick thinking and calculation, especially if you grocery shop often and keep mental lists. There’s a chance if these tools get too good that we simply won’t do any of this thinking for ourselves. But given that Any.do doesn’t have a way of telling the different layouts of grocery stores just yet — or pinpointing where you need to go to buy your cheese — it’s still not quite the fully automated grocery shopping experience.
This article is from The Verge
