App Creation #9 – App Inspiration – WorldCard Mobile

As a business professional, promoting yourself and your company is vital to gain those all important clients. The method of achieving this hasn’t changed in well over one hundred years. Of course I am referring to the trusty old business card.

Over the years, a colossal collection of contacts are accumulated with the unfortunate requisite of storing them. The more organised among us will no doubt have a special unit that allows you to flick through the vast assortment.

Either that or you will have a jumbled mess in your desk drawer, requiring a time-consuming scavenge to locate the correct one.

First Contact

Business cards as you would expect have changed over time – as the sheer mass of information that appears on this little bit of toughened paper now features email addresses, social networks, websites and so on – which didn’t exist until fairly recently.

Transferring this information so you permanently retain these details has therefore become quite a chore using any kind of manual entry. Nobody wishes to scribble down a long list of contact paraphernalia as not only is this a terrific bore – you also have plenty of opportunities to lose your hasty squiggles.

Using the WorldCard Mobile app allows you to fully exploit the advantages of digital storage – so you can chuck away that old leather contacts binder. All of the data rests within your portable device and with it comes the benefits of searchable information and that all important organised by ‘field’ view.

The Import’ant Part

WorldCard Mobile uses the phones built-in camera to take an image of the business card in question. It will then scan the captured image within the app using Optical Character Recognition (OCR). OCR attempts to recognise the printed characters, transforming the image into editable text.

Once the business card is deciphered, the software will then attempt to separate the blocks of information into fields on a contact card such as their name, address, fax, email, job title and so forth. Every business card layout is different, so it is quite a challenge for the software to assign the fields correctly, but somehow it magically manages this unenviable task.

As good as OCR is though, mistakes will inevitably be made by the efforts of the text detection, however this has not been overlooked. Selecting one of the contact fields, you can view the recognised text and a preview section appears of the business card that is relevant. Without referring to the physical business card, you have all you need to edit any mistakes.

Now it is just a matter of selecting whether you wish to create a new contact or add the new information to an existing one that is already entered on your device.

iTunes Store Link: WorldCard Mobile – business card reader & business card scanner

App Creation Series

There are literally hundreds of thousands of applications and games available to download using the digital marketplace. These range from basic clocks to fully fledged 3D gaming experiences rivalling even the leading portable devices that usually only specialise in this field.

Your challenge is competing with this vast library of already impressive offerings which, although a daunting prospect to the fledgling traveller, can be navigated successfully with the right ideas and implementation. Whether you want to create an income generator or simply desire recognition for your efforts, this book will aim to show you the path and inspire your imagination to overflow with possibilities.

Allow James Woodcock to guide you through the wilderness and raise your chances of realising your development dreams by detailing different routes with this light hearted tour of the Apps terrain. Featuring a myriad of exciting and surprising examples, you can glean important suggestions for your own creation.

App Creation Series Index:
App Creation – Beginners Guide to App Design, Development and Marketing

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