Use Google Docs to Monitor Availability of iPhone and iPads in Apple Stores

By: Unknown on 3:03 PM

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You are looking to buy an iPhone 5S (or the iPad Air or the upcoming iPad Mini Retina) but the model you want is neither available on the Apple website nor at the local Apple Store. Apple will not notify you when they have stock so you manually check the Apple’s online store, multiple times a day, to know if that product has become available or not.

A website called Apple-Tracker.com (now offline) made that task slightly less cumbersome as it allowed users to quickly check availability of Apple products in stores in their locality. You could choose an Apple product, enter your zip code and it would tell you if that product was available for pickup at any of the Apple stores in your locality.

The website is however no longer available but the developer has uploaded the code on Github should you be interested in running a private copy of the Apple Tracker. This is a Node.JS based app and implementation does need some technical know-how.

There’s however a simpler Google Script based version of the Apple Tracker tool available as well that you can run privately in your own Google Drive. This version will send email alerts (sample alert) as soon as it finds that an item in your watchlist is available at a nearby Apple store. You can track stocks of iPad Air, iPad Mini with Retina Display and the iPhone 5S.

The new Apple Tracker tool helps you find Apple Stores near your zip code that are more likely to have stock of the new iPhone and iPad units. The tools is written in Google Apps Script and internally fetches the data from Apple’s website and parses the JSON response to check the stock in various Apple Stores.

http://store.apple.com/us/retail/availabilitySearch?parts.0=<PART#>&zip=<ZIP>

All Apple products have a unique Part # – like ME313LL/A for iPhone 5S 64 GB Gold AT&T or MF118LL/A for iPad Mini Retina 128 GB Gray Sprint Wifi + Cellular – and the Apple tracker sends an HTTP request to the store.apple.com URL to check availability of that product in Apple Stores near a specific zip code.
Here’s the Google Script that check the iPhone and iPad stock at various Apple Stores automatically.

function trackInventory() {

var report = ""; // Email Report

// Find Apple Product that are to be tracked

var items = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSheet().getRange("B6:D121").getValues();

// Check inventory of Apple Stores near this zip code

var zip = UserProperties.getProperty("zip");

for (var i=0; i<items.length; i++) {

if (items[i][2] === "Y") {

// Check product availability at the given zip code

var url = "http://store.apple.com/us/retail/availabilitySearch?parts.0="

+ encodeURIComponent(items[i][1]) + "&zip=" + zip;

var locations = "";

try {

var response = UrlFetchApp.fetch(url);

var json = Utilities.jsonParse(response.getContentText());

for (var j=0; j<json.body.stores.length; j++) {

// Is the product (Apple Part) listed as "available" in that Apple Store

var store = json.body.stores[j];

if (store["partsAvailability"][items[i][1]]["pickupSearchQuote"] != "Unavailable for Pickup") {

locations += "<li><a href='" + store["directionsUrl"] + "'>" + store["storeDisplayName"] + "</a> "

+ store["address"]["address2"] + ", " + store["city"] + " " + store["address"]["postalCode"]

+ " " + store["state"] + " (" + store["phoneNumber"] + ")</li>";

}

if (locations.length) {

report += "<a href='" + storeURL(items[i][0])

+ "'>" + items[i][0] + "</a> is currently available at: <ul>";

report += locations + "</ul>";

}

} catch (e) {

Logger.log(e.toString());

}

// Send HTML Mail with the product availability details

if (report.length) {

MailApp.sendEmail(UserProperties.getProperty("email"), "Apple Tracker", report, {htmlBody: report});

}

function onOpen() {

var ss = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet();

var menu = [

{name: "Step 1: Initialize", functionName: "OpenWizard"},

{name: "Step 2: Start Tracking", functionName: "OpenWizard"}

];

ss.addMenu("Apple Store Tracker", menu);

ss.toast("Please click the Apple Tracker menu above to continue..", "", 5);

}

// Create UI to get email address and zip code from the user

function OpenWizard() {

var app = UiApp.createApplication().setTitle('Apple Inventory Tracker').setHeight(160).setWidth(300);

var top_panel = app.createFlowPanel();

top_panel.add(app.createLabel("").setHeight(10));

top_panel.add(app.createLabel("Please enter your ZIP code"));

var zip = app.createTextBox().setName("zip").setWidth(250).setValue(UserProperties.getProperty("zip"));

top_panel.add(zip);

top_panel.add(app.createLabel("").setHeight(10));

top_panel.add(app.createLabel("Please enter your Email Address"));

var email = app.createTextBox().setName("email").setWidth(250).setValue(UserProperties.getProperty("email"));

top_panel.add(email);

top_panel.add(app.createLabel("").setHeight(5));

var btn = app.createButton("Start Tracking");

top_panel.add(btn);

var handler = app.createServerHandler('storeDB').addCallbackElement(zip).addCallbackElement(email);

btn.addClickHandler(handler);

app.add(top_panel);

SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet().show(app);

}

// Get the Apple Store URL based on the Part Name

function storeURL(partName) {

var storeURL;

if (partName.search("iPad Air") != -1)

storeURL = "http://store.apple.com/us/buy-ipad/ipad-air";

else if (partName.search("iPad Mini Retina") != -1)

storeURL = "http://store.apple.com/us/buy-ipad/ipad-mini-retina";

else

storeURL = "http://store.apple.com/us/buy-iphone/iphone5s";

return storeURL;

}

// Store the Zip and Email address in User Properties

function storeDB(e) {

var ss = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet();

UserProperties.setProperty("email", e.parameter.email);

UserProperties.setProperty("zip", e.parameter.zip);

var app = UiApp.getActiveApplication();

app.close();

return app;

}

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Thursday, January 23, 2014