Amazon mobile app lets you buy things by taking a picture of them

Amazon just keeps making it easier for you to buy everything on the web. If the company continues to have its way, you’ll never need to go to the store again. Today, Amazon is announcing a new feature inside its mobile shopping app that lets you scan items in your home using your smartphone’s camera and quickly order all of your packaged goods online. The new feature, called Flow, will be available inside Amazon’s shopping app for iOS. 

Among the many things that make Amazon one of the most successful merchants in the history of merchandising is the zeal with which it removes every possible obstacle that might stand in the way of you buying something. Today, it’s adding a feature to its Amazon Mobile app for iPhone designed to let you find and purchase products — especially food and other household consumables — without so much as typing in their names. The feature is called Flow, and it’s a spruced-up take on a search tool the iPhone app previously had, Snap It. That version was designed only for books, CDs, DVDs and video games, and it made you press an on-screen shutter button and then a “Use Photo” button.