Anyway, Starbucks Finder is the latest client I've been trying out. Coded by Sensability, this app offers two main services to the Starbucks favourite. The first is location, and the second is paying for your coffee. Or cake. Or tea.
Using the geo-location sensors on your phone, Starbucks Finder will take your location and display the nearest Starbucks to you, sorted by distance, and displaying the address and opening hours. Click on a store and you'll be passed over to the Windows Phone navigation apps to plot your route to the store.
On its own that would make this app useful - although you do need to be dedicated to Starbucks - if you just need the caffeine hit and don't care where you might want to check out Find Me Coffee, which is independent of any chains. What makes it for me is the additional support for your personal Starbucks card. This card, which can be preloaded with cash, and also tracks your purchases as a loyalty scheme, has a visible 16 digit number on the back of the card. Enter this number into Starbucks Finder and the app will generate a readable barcode of your card, which can be used at the till to pay for your drinks. The app stresses that this is stored locally (and no, I've not used my actual card number in the screenshots, but I know someone is going to try it out in store anyway), and it just makes life that little bit easier.
So to summarise, you pull out your phone, open the app, it takes you to store, you wave phone at the till, and you walk away with coffee. Life sometimes is that simple.
Starbucks Finder is an ad-supported free download, and you can find it in the AAWP App Directory.