The Verge: One of the most useful tricks in Apple’s iOS 11 update is found inside the Notes app: it’s a document scanner. If there’s a business card, receipt, or any other document you want to save or mark up, this tool makes getting it on your iPhone or iPad dead simple. If you’ve been using a third-party app for this purpose until now — and there are several great ones — you can probably uninstall it in favor of Apple’s own solution. That’s what I did, anyway.
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12 comments:
This is a cool new feature. As a stage and production manager I have the need to scan and send documents frequently. In an era where work happens outside of the office just as much as it does within and the access to scanners or a fax machine is sometimes limited or with a fax machine nearly non-existent our phones have essentially become our own personal office hub. Personally, I have used several other document scanning apps but none of them are as streamlined as Apple’s new version. In addition to being streamlined instead of using OCR (Optical Character Recognition) the technology which most scanner apps use that allows images to be captured by a camera and then converted into data that can be searched and edited it uses a much more clean and powerful system called ARKit. The switch to ARKit seems to have caused of a debate between it and OCR in the tech world, however it seems to me just another instance where Apple has once again found a way to be ahead in the game.
This leaves out one detail that I think would be the most advantageous in a document scanner. Does this allow you to put it in a word processing application and edit it? Otherwise, it is basically just a camera. I find that the best feature of Adobe Acrobat is being able to take a normal PDF and transfer it into an editable document. I think that this technology is really great and allows for way more freedom. Through my bank, I can now deposit checks from my phone using a scanner, which is really helpful. Doing that with documents as a manager, I can see that being very useful. Often times I do take picture of things such as documents I need information from, then upload it to my google drive, then transcribe it to a document. I would love to have that streamlined so their is only one step rather than multiple, except I have a tendency not to ever update apps, so it might be a while.
It’s really nice that Apple now has this option built into the system. From what I’m reading, this works pretty much exactly the same as an old document scanning app I used to use. They always worked great, but for some reason I stopped using it. I think it was mostly because the camera on the phones works just as well and then it was automatically saved into the photo reel. It is nice to have the automatic grey-scaling since that’s what we are so used to seeing in digital documents, even though there is no reason why you shouldn’t have some of the natural color of the lights in the image, except that we started scanning documents on scanners that use black and white and printers that don’t use color (or rather it is just so much cheaper not to use color for everything) so we are really used to seeing everything in greyscale. That and when we type the default is black text on white background. It’s just interesting to think of how a picture of a document looks so much more unprofessional if you leave the color of the natural lighting rather than upping the contrast and going to black and white.
With the continuing development of smartphone technology comes the never-ending advancements in camera technology. I heard just the other day that companies are working to develop a 3D scanning program that can work with no more than just an app on your phone. As for the ability to scan 2 objects that technology has been around for quite some time. But I guess it is different because Apple did it… They always seem to find a way to come so late in the game yet make it look like they have just created a new element. All in all, I would say this is a cool feature that I’m sure will get a lot of use from the people in the theatrical community. The one thing that I really like about this feature is the ability to have a backed version of whatever you have a hard copy.
I think that this feature will be extremely useful and beneficial to anyone who has to scan documents frequently for their profession. That may sound obvious, but my experience with iPhone is that the fewer apps you use day-to-day, the easier it is to navigate your phone. There is an eternal struggle with native apps on the iPhone though and this article touches on that. Once you have scanned your business card or document, it saves it to the note. It then gives you option to export to a third-party app, but there is that extra step there. For example, I use Dropbox for storing most of my personal documents so it’s one extra thing I have to do. I understand why Apple does this so that they can hint to people how efficient and easy iCloud Drive is to use and how seamless it is. I’m not quite there yet, but if Apple continues to introduce helpful features like this into their native apps, I may have to consider it.
This actually prompted me to finally update my iPhone. While there are several decent document scanner applications available these days, and the results they yield are of an increasingly higher quality thanks to the iPhone's camera resolution, there is something innately appealing about using one specifically integrated into the iPhone's iOS system. With the ability to instantly and smoothly digitize paperwork a rapidly rising trend, functions like these will undoubtedly continue to be refined.
Yet, the foreseeable - albeit very long-term - goal is to eliminate paper paperwork, something that I think is a tricky end to pursue. There's something about paper copies of things that lends a sense of stability and security, the absence of which makes many people balk at total digitization. It is in this limbo between paper and digital copies that apps like this are incredibly useful. Taking snapshots of documents only provides a copy, not a replacement for the original paper document, which affords people both convenience and a sense of security. Until digitized paperwork feels as though it has the same stability that paper documents do, apps like this will be key.
I had no idea that this new feature existed, and im surprised as to why it wasn't highlighted more in the keynote that presented this update. I think Apple's strategy of waiting for something to be developed by someone else and then appropriating and improving it is rather unique. It seems that they prefer to wait for an app to become popular, see how it fairs in the public and whether or not becomes an in demand feature, and then they end up just including it as a part of either the built in hardware or software of their mobile devices. I remember a wide variety of apps that were extremely popular when the App store was first released, such as a myriad of different "flashlight" apps, that were all eventually replaced by Apple's inclusion of a flashlight feature in the actual built in software of the phone. They don't seem to be very concerned about beating anyone to the punch.
This is a very useful tool that I am glad Apple has added to its products. Everyone always has their iPhones on them or sometimes their iPads. If you have a bunch of business cards that you want to put on your computer or phone easily this is a great app to get them into your phone quickly without having to scan them with a scanner. This can also help if you need to sign a document digitally or send a document for someone to sign. You can scan it in on your iPad or iPhone and send it to someone else’s phone where they can sign it and it will be part of the document. I am sure many people have gotten free apps and possibly apps that they paid for to do this service for them. It is a lot more convenient for it to be apart of the actual iPhone so you do not have to get another app.
I have been using TurboScan for years now. I love it. It does everything I want. It scans, aligns, knows where my document is and everything. What is frustrating is once I do that, I have to email it to myself. It appears as though the apple version does all the good things that I am looking for AND will save the document to my Icloud so I can access it on any of my devices and email it as needed. One other area where TurboScan lacks is in file naming. It can be done, but it is difficult and out of the way. I can’t update my phone yet, but I am curious to see how apple does with file naming. I am quite intrigued by this idea of using Apple’s “Markup” mostly because I have no clue what it is. Sometimes I scan on TurboScan, email it to myself, open it on notability and then write on it as needed, but if “Markup” does what I think it does then I am in for a treat!
This is such a great feature! Scanning with my phone would really streamline the process of having to scan to a pdf and either e-mailing to myself or saving it to a flash drive and then downloading and uploading. I like the idea of using markup to be able to edit the actual scan-I am not familiar with the application, but will certainly have to check it out. I could see how this would be really great for rehearsal especially if you could take a picture, upload it as a pdf and then edit in adobe or export it to word or even excel if at all possible. I'd also be interested to see if you could update an item with a new scan, or if you have to create a new file each time. I think this would be really great with a tablet/ipad as the screen on my phone is a little small, but the mobility of it all is very appealing.
I’m not sure how I feel about this. Granted, I have used similar technologies before. Depositing checks into my bank account comes into mind. The biggest difference there, however, is that there is something to verify the account information. There isn’t anything here, although I suppose that is true with a traditional scanned document as well. Cell phone cameras have come a long way, along with recognition software. One of the biggest headaches for me is having to convert paper receipts to digital ones. The only real issue I have with that is walking my lazy ass to the photocopier to scan them. But I like using the photocopier. It will give me exactly what I want, I don’t have to crop it, I can put different pages in different files, and it gets file like any other receipt that is e-mailed to me. Unless I’m desperate – I’ll stick with the photocopier.
This is a very useful feature that is a long time coming for Iphone users. Not only is this feature extremely valuable tool for people to be able to scan documents on the go, but it also allows people to scan documents in unique locations that were previously impossible to scan. Additionally this change closes a major privilege gap whereby people without access to a scanner were unable to professionally scan a document. This will allow people of less privilege the ability to provide a clean professional scan of a document, which is sometimes needed when applying for a job or filling out HR paperwork.
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