Ever gotten overwhelmed in a cavernous Ikea store, battling the crowds to look at blond wood furniture and get a plate of Swedish meatballs? One developer thinks he has the answer: an iPhone app to help shoppers track products and prices in the home-improvement chain's giant warehouses.

Called SwedeShop, it lets people store Ikea product names and details (including aisle and bin location), build shopping lists and set up budgets with the local tax rate. It even comes with Swedish translation. But this unofficial app appears to have one major feature missing: no ecommerce capability.

"It's a bit of an unsolicited love letter to Ikea," said Danilo Campos, the Bend, Ore.-based developer behind the Ikea app. "I love their store. The only issue I have with Ikea is that golf pencil. I'm always trying to use my iPhone to take a picture of the tags and write little notes and it's not very satisfying."

"I thought after a particularly frustrating trip that there must be a better way to sort this thing and not run back and forth through the warehouse," he said.

Still, without the ability to order Ikea items online, it's hard to see this app taking off, though it may appeal to die-hards who spend a lot of time at the retailer's giant stores.

Ikea doesn't appear to have its own iPhone app, but Campos hopes they'll come calling: "I hope they say, 'Hey, you did a really good job with this. Let's take it to the next level."

[Via Silicon Florist]

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