Gift It - A Christmas Shopping List App for iPhone iPad (Video)

Time to “Gift It” now that the holiday shopping season is in full swing, you may find yourself looking for a simple and fun way to organize your fast-growing gift list. The Free Gift It – A Christmas Shopping List App (by Switchback Media) will help you create endless gift buying lists (for the people you’ll be shopping for this holiday season), track your shopping progress, share your lists — and does it all with a playful dash of fun — evident in its colorful, homemade-crumpled-paper graphics — complete with “handwritten” lists to cross off each item as you go.

I love the casual and unassuming graphics throughout this application because they remind me of the crumpled artwork my kids used to bring home when they were in elementary school. The translucent background graphic helps to put you in the Christmas spirit (with a nicely decorated Christmas tree abound with presents). This simple Productivity app has 3 main categories: Your List, New List, More Apps. It’s really easy to create lists by using either the “Your List” or the “New List” function. There doesn’t seem to be a big difference between the 2 category types, and either one you use will end up displaying your newly created lists in the “Your List” area — in a running tab style. When you add new lists you simply add a name by using the “+” icon and/or by typing in the List Name, Gift idea (using “+” symbol), and the Cost (if you want).

You also have a couple of options as to how you’d like your compiled lists (title/names) to appear in the Your List area, as well a preference for how to deal with crossed off items on your list. What I mean is: you can opt to swipe to cross an item off your list and have it move to the bottom of the list automatically, or tap to remove it completely from the list, where it’s not seen. With either method, a removed item can be retrieved from the Purchased Gifts area by tapping on the garbage can icon, and it can be placed back on its specific list again.

Watch The Gift It – A Christmas Shopping List App for iPhone and iPad Video Now!

For tracking purposes, you can opt to have your list title names reflect colors or percentages by making a quick change in your settings (Task Progress). If you choose Color Scale, each list name will appear in a variety of colors: red, nothing marked off yet; green, list complete; and yellow and orange for somewhere in between. I personally like both modes. But, one thing to be wary of when creating a list for someone, if you don’t add anything to a created list, the list will show 100% complete/or green, even if nothing is on the list. I would prefer to see some sort of designated symbol or message to indicate that nothing has been added to the created list.

One fun touch to the Gift It app is the hand-drawn search box (with down arrow) that displays the name of the specific list you are currently in, but also lets you scroll through all the lists (person or title) you’ve made. After you make a list you can share with others by SMS or email. I sent one of my lists as an email to see what it would look like. It arrived quickly and the format was functional, but pretty bland showing in a plain black and white spreadsheet format.

The Gift It app does not come packed with all the bells and whistles. It’s not fancy, nor is it going to alphabetize or calculate anything for you, but if you’re looking for a handy app gift list app that you can quickly pick up and get to work with, then Gift It – A Christmas Shopping List App may just be the FREE iPhone and iPad Productivity app to help you do that — and its simple, fun, and casual hand-drawn effects lend an authentic and festive feel to the holiday season, which is kind of nice in this digital day of standard typed font.

***Notice: I tested this application on an iPhone 4S and it worked great, but there are some bug issues with the application being used on an iPhone 5, however, the developer is aware and working to correct the problem(s).