[stronglikedan]

> I don't need or use an app to interact with any of those things, and when I have been offered apps, they've been worse than useless.

A store clerk recently invited me to download their app, and when I showed her that it requested every single permission, she was still baffled as to why I would want to cancel the download.

> Why can I find a shelf stocker in Target and he can use his li'l belt computer to tell me where anything is in the store, down to the shelf, and how many they have, but I can't have access to that information before I enter the store?

Home Depot's mobile app will tell you exactly where an item is on the shelf, including aisle, section, and level. They even have a map so you can find items that aren't on numbered aisles. It's fantastic.

[troisx]

Home Depot is terrible at actually tracking their inventory. There app is useless when it tells you where the item is, only to find out that they actually don't have any in stock despite what their tracking system says.

I order easily 20x as many items from Amazon, and never had an email saying "oops, we actually don't have any in stock".

[notatoad]

And this is why the stores don't give out their actual inventory numbers to the public: because they can't accurately track those numbers. Things get stolen, lost in storage, and moved off their shelf to promotional displays.

[bigtunacan]

And then people complain about how "useless" the app is. This is much less of a problem for Amazon where there aren't any thieving customers in the store.

[drivingmenuts]

It is useless if the information provided isn't correct. In some cases, it's actually worse than useless.

[lttlrck]

The Lowes app has a similar feature - it really is useful.