Target’s Image Recognition App Is Limited To The Point Of Absurdity
July 22nd, 2014Target's description of In a Snap on its own site implies a similar effort: "Have you ever flipped through a magazine or catalog and fell in love with a product — a rug, chair, lamp, whatever — and wanted to buy or bookmark it immediately? Yeah, us too. That desire for instant access to inspiring product is the idea behind Target’s latest mobile app, In a Snap. Compatible with the iPhone, iPad and iPod, the new image recognition app lets you easily shop Target items directly off the pages of magazines and printed ads — without having to scan confusing codes, look up links or search for product online or in store." Sounds good, but the app itself doesn't come close to delivering. It doesn't try to recognize images. It's solely designed to recognize a handful of specific Target ads—ads that are labeled as being compliant with this app. Despite its claim that it can deliver "without having to scan confusing codes," I'm struggling with seeing how this is any better for its shoppers or for Target. For both code-scanning (even the much-maligned QR codes) and In a Snap, the shopper must download an app, launch that app and point the phone at the ad. The only difference is that a QR code reader can be used for a huge number of applications, whereas the Target app is limited to ads from Target--and a very small percentage of even Target ads.Read more...