Apple is reportedly working on a 'Scanner' app for iOS devices, reports 9to5Mac. The app would work similar to existing applications that let you take a photo of a document and save it as a pdf. Presumably, Apple would improve on the quality of existing solutions.
Here's the 9to5Mac description of the app:
1. The user opens the app and holds the iPhone over the document or object they want scanned. They then snap a picture of it. Apple's on-board software then resizes the image to 'letter' or business card, A4 or whatever depending on original document. Resizing includes aligning edges that get skewed by a sigle scan point rather than traditional scanning methods. The user can then manually change the size of the document or the use (biz card?)
2. On board software then separates images blocks from text.
3. This is where it gets murky. At last word, Apple was trying to do OCR both on-device and using alternative cloud methods for recognizing text. Third party Optical Character Recognition (OCR) vs. in house solutions were also being tested.
4. The resulting file can then be saved as a PDF, .Pages, exported to contacts (in the case of business cards for example).
Apple already has patents for this sort of application and has filed a trademark for 'Noteworthy' a new iOS app that may relate to providing OCR capabilities.
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Here's the 9to5Mac description of the app:
1. The user opens the app and holds the iPhone over the document or object they want scanned. They then snap a picture of it. Apple's on-board software then resizes the image to 'letter' or business card, A4 or whatever depending on original document. Resizing includes aligning edges that get skewed by a sigle scan point rather than traditional scanning methods. The user can then manually change the size of the document or the use (biz card?)
2. On board software then separates images blocks from text.
3. This is where it gets murky. At last word, Apple was trying to do OCR both on-device and using alternative cloud methods for recognizing text. Third party Optical Character Recognition (OCR) vs. in house solutions were also being tested.
4. The resulting file can then be saved as a PDF, .Pages, exported to contacts (in the case of business cards for example).
Apple already has patents for this sort of application and has filed a trademark for 'Noteworthy' a new iOS app that may relate to providing OCR capabilities.
Read More