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Like the paperless office, the electronic exchange of business cards continues to evade much of the modern world. Helping iPhone users cope is WorldCard Mobile, an optical character recognition-based solution from productivity software- and tools-maker Penpower Technology that makes turning cards into contacts a breeze.
For $6.99, WorldCard Mobile does a great job of both recognizing business-card text from photos it takes from within the app and figuring out which field to plunk the information into. It then presents the data for approval or editing. Once approved, the text can be saved to the iOS contact database. If the contact is already present, options appear to discard the new data or merge it with the existing record. The app also captures headshots, corporate logos and other business card images, and it can crop to size before storage. Card images also are saved and can be processed later or in batches.
WorldCard Mobile scans cards one at a time, the app's one and only drawback. The app works with any iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch running iOS version 4.3 or later, including iPhone 5 and iOS 6.0. However, it's not recommended for the iPhone 3G, fourth-generation iPod Touch or other devices that lack an auto-focus camera. The tool supports multiple languages for OCR input as well as for its UI.
PUBLISHED JAN. 11, 2013
