Amazon adds the ability to scan barcodes to its iPhone app

Amazon has just added the ability to scan barcodes to its iPhone app, Amazon Mobile… but that new functionality, meager as it might seem at first, may be yet another blow against beleaguered brick and mortars.

Here’s how it works. Install Amazon Mobile on your iPhone 4 or iPhone 3GS running iOS 4, then when you’re out shopping and see something you like, just load up the app and take a quick snapshot of the item you’re coveting. The app will beam the barcode up to Amazon’s servers, analyze it there, then send you back the best price they can find: if it’s lower than what you’re looking at, you can order it to be delivered straight home with just one quick.

That’s actually pretty deadly. The bottom line is that Amazon is usually going to have a cheaper deal on almost anything than a brick and mortar, and by giving customers the ability to easily compare prices without having to bother with text entry, Amazon’s effectively removing the “impulse” from flesh-and-blood shopping. Nicely done, Amazon.

Samsung and Apple more friends than rivals

Apple has the iPhone and the iPad, Samsung has several smartphones and its new Galaxy Tab computer -- wherever Apple goes these days, it seems, the South Korean giant is sure to follow.

But, analysts say, the tech heavyweight rivals are not so much heading into battle as strolling hand in hand into an ever more profitable future.

"Apple and Samsung have a very good relationship," Young Park, a tech analyst for South Korea's Woori Investment and Securities, told AFP.

"Samsung is both a provider and a competitor to Apple. But they have very different strategies. Apple is aiming for the high-end market, whereas Samsung is geared more towards the mass market."

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