Atfer finding a post here on the iPhone Blog, which described this great idea for a new app. I thought fantastic, a real way of using my iPhone for business. I was graciously offered a promo code by the developers, unfortunately, being a brit; I cant take advantage of such lovely gestures without some hassle. So i bit the bullet and purchased the app for ?5.99. It's a failry small download and I was quickly searching my office for something I could justify emailing to people and showing off my new trick.
I fired it up and took a brief flick around the interface. First off I was impressed, simple, clean; though it doesn't quite follow the nice standard layout which i would have liked. The main page is a simple 4 button configuration. Instructions, Settings, From Album, and Take Picture. It's all fairly self explanatory.
I took my document, laid it square on a table and since I didn't already have a photo of it on my iPhone, I chose "Take Picture". Here we now have just a simple replica of the iPhones Core Camera page. I personally would like to see future versions encorporate a guide box so I know when im square on with my document, eliminating any later keystone adjustments.
Once the photo is taken, you now have the chance to outline the edges of your document, a purple box is overlayed where the application believes your piece of paper to be. By tapping and dragging the 4 corners, you can manipulate this box into the correct shape, cropping your document if you wish to. The application also estimates your paper size, I guess so it knows which resolution to output at, you can override this decision by changing the option at the base of the page.
Tapping 'Done' then leads you to the final stage, choosing how to handle the new file. You can send it directly via email, or save it to your iPhone album for later usage.
Now, the one thing I think people are interested is in the quality of the output. There is no point in having a great UI if the end product is inadequate. Unfortunately, this is what we have here, a really nice easy program to use, but due to the poor input, you will always receive poor output. As a concept, I feel DocScanner is perfect, with the current iPhone hardware however, the implementation is poor.
I look forward to seeing this app running on our new iPhones in the summer. Maybe that 1.2mp boost will yeild some decent results.
Unfortunately I am on a train for the next 6 hours so will upload some test shows when I get to the office again.
Marc
APPCRITICal
I fired it up and took a brief flick around the interface. First off I was impressed, simple, clean; though it doesn't quite follow the nice standard layout which i would have liked. The main page is a simple 4 button configuration. Instructions, Settings, From Album, and Take Picture. It's all fairly self explanatory.
I took my document, laid it square on a table and since I didn't already have a photo of it on my iPhone, I chose "Take Picture". Here we now have just a simple replica of the iPhones Core Camera page. I personally would like to see future versions encorporate a guide box so I know when im square on with my document, eliminating any later keystone adjustments.
Once the photo is taken, you now have the chance to outline the edges of your document, a purple box is overlayed where the application believes your piece of paper to be. By tapping and dragging the 4 corners, you can manipulate this box into the correct shape, cropping your document if you wish to. The application also estimates your paper size, I guess so it knows which resolution to output at, you can override this decision by changing the option at the base of the page.
Tapping 'Done' then leads you to the final stage, choosing how to handle the new file. You can send it directly via email, or save it to your iPhone album for later usage.
Now, the one thing I think people are interested is in the quality of the output. There is no point in having a great UI if the end product is inadequate. Unfortunately, this is what we have here, a really nice easy program to use, but due to the poor input, you will always receive poor output. As a concept, I feel DocScanner is perfect, with the current iPhone hardware however, the implementation is poor.
I look forward to seeing this app running on our new iPhones in the summer. Maybe that 1.2mp boost will yeild some decent results.
Unfortunately I am on a train for the next 6 hours so will upload some test shows when I get to the office again.
Marc
APPCRITICal
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