Works sometimes – SnapScanner Review

Update: while I believe the below is still accurate I believe that I have found the solution. What you need is an app like Genius Scan or Scanpages that can take the picture, crop it, and clean it -->> then export to your gallery. Then use this app to grab the image and OCR it. It works pretty well then. I took a whole page from a approx 7.5"x9.25 inch page and it was not laying flat. The only thing to further consider is how far away you shoot the image, too close and the high resolution will not allow for the entire text to be scanned, even if it is all in the original image.. Takeaway: get a good scan app and back up when you take the shot. Hope this helps!!! I understand the frustration of the other reviewers, but it can work. First, the reason that flatbed scanners work so well with OCR is that they produce dimensionally orthographic images, which is to say the image and the scanner are parallel and not corrupted by awkward camera angles -->> also isolating light source and using scanning light rather than a flat image. When taking a picture, basically none of that is true and the third dimension of camera angle really muddies the water. Also, this is 2 dollar app, so you know, it ain't all sunshine and roses. But, I have noticed that it works almost acceptably with my 3GS running iOS5, but not reliably with the i4S. All in all, totally worth it for a free app, almost worth it for a $.99 app, needs much work as a $1.99 app. The bugs need fixing. GOD bless America!
Review by Jshmarid on SnapScanner.