In the run up to Christmas I became interested in the iPhone applications that several major retailers have been rolling out. I think the Amazon Mobile iPhone app provides some useful functionality and will stay on my iPhone. Target's iPhone app is limited, but shows some potential if the developers continue to enhance it.

My family has come to depend upon Amazon.com Wish Lists for gift ideas. If the Amazon Mobile app were nothing more than a way to place items on my Wish List, it would earn a place on my iPhone at this time of year. Now I can add things to my Amazon.com Wish List as a see things I need or want while I'm inside of bricks-and-mortar stores.

Of course there's more to the Amazon Mobile iPhone app than that. It lets you buy products directly from your iPhone, manage your Amazon.com account, and store photos of products that you might want to purchase at a later time. This is an experimental new feature called "Amazon Remembers".

Amazon.com spent the time to do an iPhone implementation of their entire purchase process. In other words, selection of saved ship-to addresses, saved credit cards, and so on work in an iPhone-friendly way. I purchased a book for my son to give as a Christmas gift while I was on the train to work. One-click seems to be implemented as well, although I didn't try that.

There are some features that I think would improve the Amazon Mobile app if they were included. I'd like to be able to email items that I find through searching Amazon.com to someone who is listed in my iPhone address book. I'd also like to be able to add items I find in the Amazon.com product catalog to some sort of "considering" list, where I could tag the product with which of my family members might like to receive it as a gift.

The Target iPhone application (from Target Stores and Target.com) looks a lot less functional, but has some good ideas in it. I think a lot of people who download it and try it will delete it before seeing some of the better features because they are buried deep in the app.

This version of the Target app is intended to be seasonal. It offers a "Christmas Wrapped Gift Globe" that lets you choose a selection of product recommendations based on the age and sex of the person you are shopping for. Unfortunately the app shows the same selection of 9 gifts for each sex / age range each time it's run. The only difference from run-to-run is that the order of appearance of each recommendation is randomized.

You switch between product recommendations by shaking the iPhone. This is in keeping with the gift globe theme of the recommendations, but is getting pretty tired as a UI metaphor.

After you run through the 9 recommendations that Target offers you, you are given the option to browse either Target.com's mobile website or the full website for more gift ideas. The mobile site is not iPhone-optimized.

Deeper examination of the Target app is required to see the features that make it possibly worthy of keeping. The "Favorites" area of the Target app actually implements the feature that I wish the Amazon.com app had. It serves as a review mechanism for the products you saw in the "Find a Gift" area and allows you to assign the selected gift to a person in your iPhone's Address Book. You can also search for a Target store nearby and the app will tell you whether the gift you've chosen is in stock or not.

Oddly, the "Find A Store" feature operates differently depending on whether it's used stand-alone or to check stock for your gift choices. The stand-alone "Find A Store" feature gives you the option of using Current Location as the basis for your store directory search. When you access the store directory from inside "Favorites", you have to put in a Zip Code or City/State.

I'd like to see the location-based functions in the Target app extended so that when you find one of your selected gifts is in stock at a specific store, the app displays a floor plan of the store with an indication of where the item can be found.

I think that the Amazon.com app is definitely a keeper for its solid Wish List and on-iPhone purchase experience. It seems like the Target app is not yet ready for prime time because its Christmas Wrapped Gift Globe has the feel of an electronic ad circular. However the other services in the application look promising.

Based on my experience using these retail services applications, I could definitely see restaurants and convenience stores with prepared foods offering iPhone apps in the future as a faster alternative to fax orders. For instance, Chipotle ought to do an iPhone app so you can order before arriving at their restaurant. They already have web-based on-line ordering at order.chipotle.com. Restaurants like On The Border, Chili's Grill & Bar, and Romano's Macaroni Grill also come to mind.

In the Northeast, super convenience store chains such as Wawa and Sheetz could provide iPhone applications that let you place orders for pickup. Both of these chains already have screen-based ordering systems in place at their stores so most of the electronics necessary to make this work are working already.