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Scan Cam app for iPhone and iPad


4.3 ( 8933 ratings )
Utilities Photo & Video
Developer: Senstic
0.99 USD
Current version: 1.2.1, last update: 7 years ago
First release : 13 Jul 2009
App size: 10.05 Mb

*** YouTube Video *** http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TJzrSK5F2c

Scan Cam turns your iPhone 3GS into a portable scanner. Snap a photo of a paragraph from books/newspaper/magazines, and let Scan Cam turns it into text. You can then save the text into paste-board (to be used by other apps), or email it off.

Features:

* Text recognition directly from iPhone 3GSs camera.
* Recognition from English, Spanish, French, German, Italian and Dutch.

** IMPORTANT ** Scan Cam only works with iPhone 3GS. Earlier iPhone models have different cameras and are not supported.

Pros and cons of Scan Cam app for iPhone and iPad

Scan Cam app good for

Funkioniert sehr gut war sehr überascht fuer das kleine Geld. -cannot choose recogniton area -cant choose from library and roll +Works with various backgrounds. +Very small interface +Very little money for this feature +its fast , but no status indicator +language section
Works to a certain extend. But a little improvement is necessary. I would like to have the option to scan text from a foto that is already in the camera roll.
I am using this app every day for several months with my 3GS, and I am quite satisfied with it. If quality of picture is good, it will do good job. It does have some problem with breaks (some words are get combined together), but I hope that they will address it soon. Overall-Good Application for 3GS.
Worth hella-more than 99c to me! Just follow the tips and it works far more often than not.
After the developers promptly added a much needed feature (ability to import Camera Roll images), I am amazed by the power of ScanCam! Ive just scanned a long paragraph of italicized text reproduced in a reprint of an old John Muir book and the accuracy was nearly 100 percent! This OCR engine is really first-rate. I would also add that preparing the text image by squaring it up and increasing contrast with a product like JotNot seems to help ScanCam do its job better. Although not absolutely necessary, it further improves the apps already impressive accuracy. Perhaps ScanCams developers ought to consider a co-promotion or bundling with JotNot? In any event, dont be put off by any negative review. Try this yourself, especially if you have the higher resolution 3Gs. By the way, it took a couple of reboots after installing before it started working properly for me. Give it a chance before deleting. It really is amazing! (And I have absolutely no association with the developers.)
Well once again, I do not understand why some people get bad results and others good results. If you read the instructions, you will see that 1. you need sufficient light, low light introduces too much noise. 2. Be sure that the picture is sharp - no? then retake it!, 3. Text to be scanned (photographed) needs to be as straight as possible. Sometimes when you scan a book the curvature throws off the OCR. I have scanned in both English and German, and I am amazed that it can work so well on an iPhone. Several have been perfect, and some had a few errors, i.e. 0 (zeros) seem to always be recognized as capital Os. Under low light conditions, or skewed text, I get the predictable result, gibberish! So keep trying, this can only get better. To the dev: Can you add the ability to use pictures from you library, that have been enhanced, i.e. contrast adjusted, etc. or possibly add the ability to tweak the picture in the app? Thanks, for a great app!

Some bad moments

<1st review on July 28> I tried 5 fives. Every time, I get funny characters. The OCR translation is not even close. It doesnt even scan big six letters "iPhone". I want my money back. <2nd review on Aug 6th> I tried version 1.2 to give it another try. I tried six more times. Id say the scanning is about 20% accurate. 3 out of my six tries, the app crashed. I have the new 3GS iPhone model. Apple should not have approved this buggy app. <3rd review on Sep 3> I dont see this version being any better. I suggest Senstic let users try for free. Maybe, other people can prove me wrong.
Doesnt do a great job. It got a lot right on giant bold text like an advertisement with 4 words, but for any real use its mostly gibberish. Not completely useless but mostly useless.
This application doesnt work at all. After u take the pictre it takes 1 min to a minute and a half to analyse the picture, and then the translation isnt even close. Symbols appear Every other letter. For example, I took a picture of part of my book cover "research" that was clear, in black text over a white background. And it came out as "4>£ea(#". This is a complete waste of time. If anyone has an app that does OCR pls recc it to me. Save ur money
This app just dont work at all, in french its even worst... Worst than worst!
I bought both applications, Scan Cam being the second after loving the Business Card Reader application. Obviously, all OCR engines are not the same, and this one does not work. Save your money. Do not make my mistake: STAY AWAY FROM THIS APPLICATION. IT DOES NOT WORK.
Save your money as this app is a big disappointment in every way.