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Business Card Scanner

lindsayanng

lindsayanng

macrumors 68000
Original poster
May 4, 2008
1,515
1
East Haven, CT
I am DYING for an app that is JUST a business card scanner. I know that there are apps out there with symbol recognition that can take a pictures of a card (or anything else) and turn any text into readable and searchable data, but i would LOVE to have JUST a business card reader that maybe will read the card and add the info to a contact in your contact list..

is this possible??
 
I'm not aware of any technical limitations because I've seen this done on other phones.
 
I would seriosly be SOOO pyshced for one.. nothing else needed, just a simple add that can add it to your contacts.. Any developers out here read this, if you make it I WANNA BE THE FIRST TO KNOW!!!
 
so where is it?? i would be VERY happy to have something like this in the app store.. c'mon devs. i gave you a money making idea and i'm not asking for a cent!
 
Image to text conversion is hard, add in all the facy fonts and weird people do with business cards and it's even harder.
 
I too would pay for this because I believe the application would be difficult to make. It seems simple on its face but as stated just above, image to text conversion is very difficult and not made any easier by the myriad of fonts people tend to use on their cards. I would also wonder if raised type would have any ill-effect on such a scanner.

Either way I would be in the market for such an application myself.
 
Common software

Most Japanese phones have this functionality built in, and can file under contacts in both japanese and English.

I have a piece of software on my previous phone, a Windows Mobile, called "Worldcard Mobile" that can do it in English and Chinese... so whether or not it is 'hard' isn't really relevant. A lot of things are hard, but other phones can do them, I'm very surprised this functionality was not part of the default software, but I'm even more surprised that there isn't an app on the Apple Store that does this. (as far as I can tell, anyway, and I've searched)
 
Wouldn't this require the camera of the phone to be able to take a clear photo of the business card in order for the software to convert to text? This goes beyond the capabilities of the camera I think. I'd love to see shots from people if they are able to shoot readable text from the iPhone camera.

With the amazing tip from YoAlex here on the forums, I purchased a magnifier lens from Radio shack.

http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2102638

And here's a comparison. Two shots, almost identical, without, then with the magnifier lens, using nothing more then a lamp as my light source. Same exact distance.

The problem is, I can't use this method to get the entire 3.5" of the business card in. It's only good for about 2.5", just macro shots.
 

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It would be sort of neat if you could use the coverflow feature to "flip" through business cards!
 
i would buy whatever i need to in order to make tis work.. its better than having a busines card scanner in your brief case.. I dont mind a little extra hardware and paying decent money for the app..

\and WOW.. that little hand held magnifier made that kind of a different on showing text up close!! thats amazing.. i might just use that and save the images in a business cards section on my phone for now.
 
lindsayanng said:
\and WOW.. that little hand held magnifier made that kind of a different on showing text up close!! thats amazing.. i might just use that and save the images in a business cards section on my phone for now.
Click to expand...

I'm blown away at how well it works, and how easy it is to use. I just can't quite get the entire 3.5" card in the shot and that clear. I'm looking for a solution.
 
I have no use for it, but I'd love to see it because it shows off the capabilities of the iPhone.
 
Too bad it hasn't become standard practice to include a barcode or QR(?) code on the back of a business card. A phone app could easily be built to read that code and suck the data into Contacts.
 
yea, i guess in a few years there will be barcodes on business cards, but then again, in a few years, there might be a business card reader on a phone that doesnt need the bar code..

I seriously would pay good money for an app like that..Even if i couldnt get the 3.5 " at least i could get the name and phone number, those are usually within 2" of each other.
 
Business Card Scanner

Have you tried Scanr.com. It is an online service that does about what you are asking for. You take a picture or the card, email it to them, and they email you back a vcard.
 
watterud said:
Have you tried Scanr.com. It is an online service that does about what you are asking for. You take a picture or the card, email it to them, and they email you back a vcard.
Click to expand...
That sounds great, but it would only make sense if you could add a vcard that you receive via email to your AB ... Currently, you can't.
 
arubinst said:
That sounds great, but it would only make sense if you could add a vcard that you receive via email to your AB ... Currently, you can't.
Click to expand...

Well, that's true on the iPhone itself, but you can use your desktop computer to import the vCard to your address book, and then sync back to the phone.
 
3 dedicated apps exist to my knowledge, but all have problems ...

'CardLasso' (from Model Metrics), 'Card Scan' (from Senstic), and 'Snabiz' (from Netwalk)

All promise to be able to scan business cards and transfer data into vCard / address book.

Sounds great, but all are having problems that they openly admit to (and have very bad reviews from people who have downloaded them in the App stores).

http://www.modelmetrics.com/solutions/lasso2go-platform/
http://www.lasso2go.com/
http://www.senstic.com/forum.aspx?g=posts&t=203
http://iphone.netwalk.be/content/snabiz

If I understand correctly the older iPhone models (ie not 3GS) did not have camera that was capable of sufficient focus to capture business card data, while the 3GS has a better (and sufficient) camera, it seems there are still software/hardware issues that prohibits business card scan/recognition.

Very disappointing.

If anyone can get this right, I would suspect that it could command a good price. For me, once such an app becomes available (and reliable), it will be one of the main reasons that I will finally invest in an iPhone.
 
matthewdbenson said:
'CardLasso' (from Model Metrics), 'Card Scan' (from Senstic), and 'Snabiz' (from Netwalk)

All promise to be able to scan business cards and transfer data into vCard / address book.

Sounds great, but all are having problems that they openly admit to (and have very bad reviews from people who have downloaded them in the App stores).

http://www.modelmetrics.com/solutions/lasso2go-platform/
http://www.lasso2go.com/
http://www.senstic.com/forum.aspx?g=posts&t=203
http://iphone.netwalk.be/content/snabiz

If I understand correctly the older iPhone models (ie not 3GS) did not have camera that was capable of sufficient focus to capture business card data, while the 3GS has a better (and sufficient) camera, it seems there are still software/hardware issues that prohibits business card scan/recognition.

Very disappointing.

If anyone can get this right, I would suspect that it could command a good price. For me, once such an app becomes available (and reliable), it will be one of the main reasons that I will finally invest in an iPhone.
Click to expand...

These applications don't work well because they rely primarily on OCR technology. CardSnap is different. It works very well and it will work on the 3G phone if you buy a Clarifi case. I am biased because I am one of the developers, but you can check out the lite version to prove that it works.

CardSnap and CardSnap Lite
 
beachsoft said:
These applications don't work well because they rely primarily on OCR technology. CardSnap is different. It works very well and it will work on the 3G phone if you buy a Clarifi case. I am biased because I am one of the developers, but you can check out the lite version to prove that it works.

CardSnap and CardSnap Lite
Click to expand...

This is pretty blatant advertising. At least tell us how CardSnap doesn't rely on OCR and why it's different. As of now you're just dissing everyone else and then saying, "Get cardsnap!"
 
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