Grocery IQ app no longer works and no longer on App store

This very thing also happened to me a couple of years ago (anyone else?) I spent a couple of weeks test-driving other apps and found nothing I liked nearly as much! And then one day, Grocery iQ started working again (so I would suggest not deleting it just yet.)

As for Apple, it would be nice if they were able to do an "audit" of some sort to let you know which apps you have downloaded (from THEIR store) that might be impacted by THEIR software upgrade. Again, not faulting them BUT seems like they could give advance notice. In this case, it's not just the loss of the app, it's the fact that we all also lost access to the data. A heads up would have allowed us to at least move that information to another app before upgrading our systems (of course, it seems like the app could have somehow posted a message along those lines as well letting users know.)

BTW, based on some suggestions here and the developer actually responding here as well, my family is trying AnyList as we leave Grocery IQ behind. There did not seem to be any way to export everything over from Grocery IQ, but that (as far as I can tell) is on Grocery IQ not having an "export" command I can find.

But it's a good sign that the developer is willing to monitor the Apple boards and respond. Not only that, but my wife was trying to figure out a few things and wrote to their tech support. We heard back from a "John Reed" in under 24 hours (the next morning responding to her 7:30 pm support ticket––on the free version of the app).

Honestly, that's pretty freakin' good!

John L. Reed | AnyList Customer Support

- Questions? Many answers are instantly available at help.anylist.com.

- You can review your AnyList account information or purchase/renew an AnyList Complete subscription at anylist.com/account. For information about AnyList Complete, visit anylist.com/complete.

I still can't speak to the quality of the app (she's farther ahead than me in figuring it out) but this is a 5-star attitude towards supporting their user base. Just doesn't get much better than that.

Ah, if rumors are true, here is probably what happened to Grocery IQ.

https://www.coupons.com/lp/apps/

It was either gobbled up into code for the Coupons.com app, or they just bought it and killed it because they saw it as competition. I know they had some kind of deal with Grocery IQ for ages since you could see the coupon opportunities pop up on it. But I never saw a coupon I needed.

Is the consensus here that AnyList is the best replacement?

https://www.anylist.com/lists

I have to say that if their tech and marketing people popping onto this thread to offer tech support and information is any indication, that's got to bode well for support down the line.

Just hope it's easy to export everything out of Grocery IQ into AnyList.

Mick

Just for clarity, Apple had nothing to do with this at all. That was a third party App, owned and developed by a private company. That private company pulled their App from the App Store. Apple does not own third party apps. It is merely the distributor for them. Apps are owned 100% by the companies that developed the app. And they have the legal right to discontinue the distribution of their App whenever they chose to. And Apple cannot do anything about that.

But Grocery IQ was not an Apple Inc product and they do not control its distribution or continued support. The company groceryiq was acquired by another company, Quotient Technology who it appears dropped development and pulled the app off the market.

The App Store is just that - an online store for distribution of iOS and iPadOS apps. But the companies that own the apps sold there still retain all rights to their intellectual property and control of it. Nor do companies have to forewarn Apple if they are pulling their app from distribution. They just do it from their developer account and the app disappears from the App Store.

@Michael Black. Exactly my thoughts. Well said.

There are certainly some things I wish Apple would do better, but it's not fair to assign blame for something that is wholly in the purview of the developer. There are some super devoted, conscientious, hardworking, great communicating small app developers out there. But there are others that just don't bother to communicate much at all. The blessing and the curse of the AppStore is that there are thousands and thousands of apps available for Apple/Mac users. If you're old enough to remember the days of Mac program (the old word for "app") poverty (the mid/late 90s was grim), you'll appreciate the plethora today. Feast or famine. Both have their challenges, but most prefer the former over the latter.

Grocery IQ does indeed work with IOS14. (I'm on 14.4) Just go into your Appstore App on your iPhone, tap on your emoji or pic and it will take you to your settings. From there go to: Purchased > My Purchases. In there you can search and re-download your app and many other apps we all thought stopped working!

I posted the question before about scanning barcodes because that was a feature I liked in Grocery IQ. I’ve been looking at a lot of apps for keeping a grocery list (& other various lists). I finally found a grocery list app that you can scan barcodes (for free) and I like it so far! I haven’t created an account yet (I’ve been creating lists so far without doing that, but I probably will soon). The app is called List Ease (below is a pic of the opened app (hopefully it can be seen). I pray that they continue to keep this app going! I hope this helps some of you guys who were also trying to find an app for grocery lists!

Same here. I didn't realize it was going away, and can't find a web-based site with the database. I'm trying to find an app that has the favorites lists options, can add prices to items, multiple lists, and can arrange each "list" categories to align with how the store is laid out. I'm so frustrated!

Thank you! Just tried AnyList, was able to create the categories and arrange them for my store. I can create multiple stores and arrange the categories for each. I still have to recreate my actual list I had, but I see I can add prices, too. I think this will work great. Thanks again!

What Apple should have done BEFORE erasing our excellent Grocery IQ app was to notify that the app was going to be erased when we updated our phone. Specially if Apple could not save the information that was in the erased app and can not provide its users with an app that would allow the transfer of the info from the erased app. In fact apparently Apple can not even provide a grocery app that works as well as Grocery IQ. Yes, the barcode feature was awesome. And yes, it did not scanned the Trader Joe's stuff, but we did just fine without it. Now coming with this excuse about providing a scanning bar code in the future when you can do it well... Please, just provide at least a barcode that will work with the majority of products. Then we you upgrade that new app, you can improve on your barcode reading capabilities. We are really upset for we have been using Grocery IQ for years, we had many lists and things that were scanned. It will be a nightmare to recreate all those lost lists. I find this completely disrespectful, to just erase an app without letting the user know, and not giving them a chance to remedy the situation by transferring the information to a new app. I have been an Apple user all of life, but I am getting sick and tired of the disrespect given to users of your products.

Glad to know I'm not the only one who experienced this issue with Grocery IQ just disappearing off the face of the earth, with no warning, no way to save any of our lists, etc. Supposedly Coupons.com bought them out. The whole thing was handled so poorly. I just happened to look at my IPAD which has not been updated to the latest IOS and the app is still there with my old lists. So you might want to try that with an older device and at least retrieve some of your favorite repeat lists.

Grocery IQ app is now back on the App Store. I too had deleted it when it quit working and was unable to find on App Store. But a recent search I was able to find and reloaded it. Unfortunately 99% of my previous items and lists are no longer there. It at least I have the app back.

I just reinstalled the app and then sync the app but it only had about half of my data. Not sure I'm going to keep using it now that I know it can just go away at any time. I'll going to rebuild my data in Any List app.