Wait for it... Decide tells you if you should buy that gizmo now, or not.

No matter how many times I write that physical retail is the refuge of the dumb shopper, from time to time even I find myself in a Best Buy or CostCo, fondling the box of some new gadget, itching to buy it on the spot. I, too, am dumb.

Fortunately, there's an app for that. Several, in fact.

In addition to the multitude of shopping apps covered elsewhere on CNET (see the Related Stories box), I recommend two that are custom-made for the undisciplined electronics shopper.

First, Amazon's A9 Flow. Amazon already has another strong app for scanning prices in stores, but Amazon Flow is great for the casual in-store shopper since you barely have to hold still for the camera on your iPhone to get a fix on the product or barcode you're pointing at. It's just too easy to see if the price of what you're looking for on shelf in front of you is competitive with the online price. So get this app.

Related stories

• iOS shopping apps: bar code scanners
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Android has taken the lead among business users, at least according to the latest State of the Web report from cloud security provider Zscaler.

Among the three top mobile platforms, Android captured 40 percent of all mobile transactions seen by Zscaler on its network during the third quarter. That marked a healthy gain from the second quarter when Android captured just 17 percent. In comparison, RIM's BlackBerry accounted for 37 percent, while Apple's iOS took home just 22 percent.

Those percentages are derived from the Web traffic generated from millions of business users around the world who access Zscaler's online security, according to the company. Both mobile device usage and mobile device transactions continued to surge over the last quarter. But Android saw the biggest worldwide gains as Zscaler tracked an increase in mobile use outside the U.S.

"As mobile transactions from our enterprise customers continue to grow, we notice that the Android platform accounts for the largest and geographically dispersed user-population," the report said. "As well, it represents the mobile platform with the highest number of transactions through our cloud.

Apple's iOS, which fell to third place over the quarter, lost about half of its global share from the second quarter when it accounted for 42 percent of all transacti... [Read more]

This week's post is a special early edition of my weekly iOS app collection. Black Friday is the biggest shopping day of the year, and though I can't help you beat the lines or navigate through the crowds, I've rounded up a few apps that might make your holiday shopping a tiny bit easier.

These apps are made for price-checking on the go, so you know you're getting the lowest price for the item in front of you. The best apps in this category are the ones that locate the item online and in nearby stores, but even apps that are only strong at scanning will definitely help to organize your holiday shopping and will hopefully result in fewer Black Friday headaches.

This week's iOS app collection is all about tools for holiday shopping. Get quick access to a huge database of products and prices and some helpful shopping tools.

Amazon Mobile scanned just about everything we threw at it and gave several results to browse through.

Amazon Mobile (Free) is a great one-stop-shopping or price-checking app on the iPhone and will be familiar and intuitive to use for many because it closely resembles the popular online shopping destination. You'll need a strong data or Wi-Fi connection to browse... [Read more]

Google hopes to better the Web with Dart, but Microsoft has declared itself an opponent of the programming language rather than a potentially valuable ally.

Google hopes Dart will address shortcomings in JavaScript, the programming language that endows Web sites with some brains. In a blog post yesterday, though, Microsoft said that improving JavaScript is the way to go.

Five members of Microsoft's JavaScript team said the Dart sales pitch argues "JavaScript has fundamental flaws, and to support these scenarios requires a 'clean break' from JavaScript...We disagree with this point of view."

Dart got off to a rough start, with Google alienating some potential allies with an insular early-stage development process. And allies are key: For Dart to live up to its potential, it needs support among browser makers. Microsoft's stance makes it look like it'll be very hard to build that support into Internet Explorer. In addition, Microsoft remains influential with programmers, and it just offered a very public vote of no confidence.

JavaScript has the classic benefits of an incumbent technology. Programmers are familiar with it, newer browsers are... [Read more]