Apnoti.com has launched a new iPhone application called iBarcode and claims it is the first mobile price search engine with an integrated bar code scanner.

Consumers can scan product bar codes and the application searches for the best prices on the Internet. The application is $1.99 in the Apple App Store.

“The mobile market is becoming more and more important,” said Wolfram Gast, cofounder and chief marketing officer of Apnoti.com, Starnberg, Germany. “Based on our unique technology of querying prices in real-time at http://smart.apnoti.com it was the only next logical step to bring this technology on the mobile market.

“The bar code scanner technology simply facilitates and speeds up the process of finding products on your iPhone,” he said. “So in the end consumers will always be able to better judge the price in the store in order to make the right purchase decision.”

Apnoti.com is an Internet company that is based on a piece of technology that registers price fluctuations in real-time. The site features automatic email notification when the desired price is reached and a price trend model.

Smart shopping on a smartphone
The application recognizes bar codes such as UPC8, UPC12, EAN and ISBN. These bar codes are generally found on the packaging of cameras, audio and hi-fi devices, computers, furniture, books and DVDs.

Consumers can set their own individual marketplace and language settings, send SMS product searches and store and send price watchlists.

Mr. Gast said that some products may see price fluctuations of up to 70 percent at one Internet retailer.

After a consumer scans a product, the application generates product information and a real-time price comparison.

Consumers can also search for items by product name.

Clicking on a price result sends the consumer to the merchant’s site for purchase.

According to Apnoti.com, the target demographic for the application is 16-40-year-old urban consumers in Germany, the United States, France and Britain.

IBarcode is not alone in the bar code scanning marketplace.

ShopSavvy lets consumers scan the bar code of any item to determine its availability and price from both online and local retailers (see story).

Mr. Gast said that by using the iBarcode application, consumers can get great price transparency and help in making the best purchase decision.

“We believe that people are becoming more and more price conscious,” Mr. Gast said. “IBarcode will facilitate the process of comparing prices.”