Decide’s new iPhone app will make you a Black Friday ninja

Should you buy that new digital camera at Best Buy, or order it on Amazon? Or should you hold off altogether for a new model?

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Decide has been answering those sorts of questions with its website for the past few months, but today the site has finally gone mobile with the launch of its free iPhone app. With the ability to compare consumer electronics prices across nearby stores and the web, as well suggestions on when to wait for a new model, the company’s iPhone app should be a useful tool for any holiday shopper.

The app allows you to search for specific products, or even better, you can scan barcodes instantly while you’re browsing a retail store. Once you scan an item, or choose a search result, the app will provide the best price for the item nearby and online. Most importantly, it’ll give you a clear answer as to whether you should buy that item at all, or wait for something better to come along. The app provides you a history of pricing data for every item, as well as a confidence score for its buying decision.

Just like the Decide site, the app also provides reviews rounded up from Amazon, Best Buy, and other sites across the web, as well as technical specifications. Once you’ve searched for an item, you can share Decide’s results with your friends via Twitter, Facebook, or over e-mail.

One glaring omission from the app is the ability to save products for future reference. The Decide site allows you to login through your Facebook account and get alerts about pricing changes and new models for specific products. There’s no such functionality on the iPhone app yet, though it does helpfully keep a history of your searches. I suspect the company decided to push out the app without the product alert feature to get it into consumers hands in time for Black Friday.

The company added mobile phones to its database of electronics in September, but it also tracks most popular electronics categories like televisions, computers, tablets, and cameras.

Decide is based in Seattle, WA, and has raised $8.5 million in funding from Madrona Venture Group, Maveron and angel investors.