Business Card Reader for the iPhone Video Review

The business card may soon be the thing of the past. Then again, they've (who is this "they?") been saying that about books for quite some time as well. Even if the business card disappeared tomorrow, many of us would still have piles of the cards hanging around.

For me, the prospect of scanning the cards on my full-size scanner, then using some sort of OCR software, then getting the data into my Address Book, just seems like too much work. Enter Business Card Reader for the iPhone. The app uses the camera on your iPhone to take a picture of the card, then processes the information, adding an entry in the address book on the phone. With the different styles of business cards, the lighting conditions when you take the picture, and cameras focus as factors, the accuracy of the information varies. It might seem silly to scan a card, then manually edit details, but I found this was still preferable to the process of adding business cards via the computer/scanner. Plus, the app saves an image of the business card, making it easier to get the right information if you missed correcting an item the first time.

I'm finally scanning and throwing out a sizable metal box of business cards thanks to Business Card Pro. Think of it as more of an "offline" solution, than something you'll want to use when someone first hands you a business card, and I think you'll be happy with the results. As the app and iPhone camera improve over time, the accuracy of the scanned info should only increase.

(iTunes link)

Here's a look: