Appletell previews BarcodeScan v2.0 for iPhone
Section: Apple, Software + Apps, Home and Personal, Third-Party, iPhone, iPhone, iPhone SDK & Apps, Reviews
Category: Utilities
Developer: IDC
Requirements: iPhone 3.1 software or later
Compatibility: iPhone
File Size: 4.3MB
Version: 2.0
Price: TBD (upgrade from current version will be free)
Availability: Early 2010
BarcodeScan is a utility for the iPhone that allows you to either enter a 12-13 digit UPC, EAN or ISBN code or take a picture of it in order to find out more information about the product it represents. Coming in a simple interface, the application allows users to have access to user reviews, competing prices, and other details about items while providing methods to share this information with friends.
In terms of barcode scanning applications, this is the first one I’ve used, and I’m pretty impressed with it. When launched, the app allows you to start the camera to take a picture of a barcode, enter it manually, or search your barcode history.
Some of the new features coming in the 2.0 version are:
- The ability to see product reviews (average, low, high and full text)
- The ability to scan and type UPC-E barcodes (8 digits)
- Rewritten results view to allow for collapsable sections
- Histogram functions for prices and reviews
- The ability to sort vendors by price or name
Using the camera on an iPhone 3G is all but useless with this application, unfortunately. However, I wouldn’t necessarily blame this on the application, as the image quality on the 3G is simply not good enough at all to allow their algorithm to analyze the barcode. As you can see from my screenshot below, it would be hard for even a human to analyze. The developer recommends using a device with an autofocus lens such as the iPhone 3GS, so I’m assuming it would work much better on that device.
Entering the code manually, on the other hand, works well. This method requires simply typing in the numbers and watching as the barcode slowly completes itself onscreen. Once done, you simply search for it just as the camera would, except this method obviously skips the image part. Thankfully, the developer uses the keypad keyboard, so typing barcodes in isn’t much of a hassle at all unless you find it hard to read the small numbers on packages.
It’s clear this application has a nicely sized database of barcodes. In my experience, it found most of the barcodes for which I searched. That said, the amount of information about each item certainly varied. For instance, when I searched for a Kodak EasyShare camera, it found what it was, but basically just provided a Google link for the product along with the title. In contrast, when I typed in the barcode for a book I’m reading, Coders At Work, the application was able to pull up a bunch of useful information. For a visual of this, see the comparison image below.
When the application does find a lot of information about the product, it certainly is useful. Also, I noticed the amount of time it took to look up a barcode was very reasonable and quick. For an example, we’ll stick to the Coders At Work book. For this product, BarcodeScan was able to find and create both a chart for the various prices as well as the reviews. When clicking on one of these table cells, it goes into greater depth about the category. As you can see in the image below, it even pulls down reviews about the book right there for you. This can be be extremely helpful when shopping, and I can see myself using it a lot.
Once you’ve successfully found an item, the application saves it under your history, which is accessible from the home page of the app. The history is simply a list of your searches and doesn’t seem to store any of the data locally (when you click an item, the application must look up the saved barcode again). It would be nice if a future update added a way to cache this data to prevent waiting for AT&T’s often crummy network to do its thing.
As I said, this application is put together very well, and you can tell the developer wanted to keep it simple. I found it to be very functional when it did manage to find enough data about the product to make the time spent typing the code in worth it. It will be interesting to see how it works as I test more products with it while I’m on the go. It seems as if they have a lot of products already in their database or the databases they access through the app. I would certainly recommend this one to somebody looking for a decent barcode application. That said, I would also love to see how it works with the autofocus camera on the 3GS, so if anyone has one of those, be sure to share your experiences in the comments.
Barcode Scan v2 is in the process of being rewritten, as it used APIs Apple no longer allows in the update process. In the meantime, the prices of v1.2 has been reduced to $0.99. Considering the upgrade to v2 will be free, if this looks like an app that would interest you, now would be the time to check it out.
Full Story » | Written by Josh Holat for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »