PriceTracker at Mac App Store analyse

I want to start this review by saying that I think there is a need in the App Store for user-friendly interface with Amazon and in particular tracking product prices over time. Given that this is a newly released App I purchased it knowing it would probably have some problems to work out. Well, it does have problems. So much so that for me it is unusable. The first problem is that the interface is not intuitive and there is no help documentation. Clicking "PriceTracker for Amazon Help" under help in the menubar results in a dialogue box with the message: "Help isn’t available for PriceTracker for Amazon." Also in the help menubar is a link to the developers website, but no instructions there, either. The second problem is that there is no way to search for items on Amazon from within the App. To add an item, you must manually enter the Item Code from Amazon (ASIN or ISBN-10). Though Im a frequent shopper on Amazon, I had no idea where to find this information. I browsed the an items page on the website and couldnt locate it. Eventually I noticed the string ASIN in the URL and copied and pasted it into the app. The first time I did this it didnt work. The second time it did. So, it can add an specific item and track its price moving forward (it doesnt give price history information). But this function is rendered useless to me because its a pain to search for items in my browser, get their item codes, and enter them into the app one by one. What I had expected was a search function like the one offered in the free Mac Store App "PricePirates", and of course the ability to add items to a track list from within the app. Relatively minor, but would be nice to see as features - view information about price history - set price alerts as a percentage of the current price (rather than a fixed amount) and have a default percentage that can be applied to all items entered In any event, I look forward to checking out an update.

It took me awhile to figure out how to use the app as there is no help. Once I figured out how to find the ASIN I was okay but there are other applications that do this with drag and drop. Also, I’d like to see this in the menubar, have an auto-luanch at login option and no Dock icon. It is crude to put it mildly but I do like the ability to put in an alert level. I use this to track some of my Subscibe and Save items whose price varies wildly during the month and this lets me track the price so I can cancel if it gets too be ridiculously expensive. The prices are just not accurate. It returns pricing from third party sellers without adding in shipping which causes the actual price to be ridiculously expensive.