Opening the Amazon app, tapping the search bar, and finding a product by text or image search: this is how most of us have been using it. However, Amazon thinks that’s too many steps.
The company has rolled out six new visual search features, one of them being the Amazon Lens widget for iPhone. It puts a camera shortcut directly on your iPhone’s lock screen, so you can point it at anything around you and the app finds it before you’ve unlocked the phone.
How to add the Amazon Lens widget?
Adding the widget is quite straightforward. When unlocked, press and hold the lock screen, and then tap on the Customize button at the bottom.
In the lock screen editing mode, hit the “Add Widgets,” select Amazon from the list of apps, and swipe to find the Amazon Lens widget. Tap or drag it to your lock screen, and that’s it.
You can also add Amazon’s existing Search and Orders widget alongside the Lens widget. Fair warning: this will turn your lock screen into an Amazon shopping panel for finding products, running text-based searches, and tracking deliveries.
What is the need for a lock screen shopping widget?
The need isn’t obvious, until you think about and understand how the concept of impulsive shopping works. When you spot something you want, you have a narrow window before distraction takes over. Either you forget about it or you get enough time to contemplate whether you actually need it.
Even if you stay motivated, the process of unlocking your phone, opening Amazon, finding the product, includes several steps. There are chances that you might change your mind mid-way, costing Amazon a potential sale. That is where the lock screen widget earns its place.
It shortens the buying process to a single tap, one doesn’t even require unlocking your phone. The entire point of the wizard is to make sure Amazon is the first thing you reach for when you spot something worth buying.