Apple Thoughts - News & Reviews on all things Apple

The Claim: "Scanner Pro transforms iPhone into portable scanner in your pocket. It lets you scan multipage documents, send them by email and even upload to MobileMe iDisk or any other WebDAV enabled server. You can also transfer scanned document to desktop computer over Wi-Fi and transform it into editable MS Word file with OCR tool of your choice. Scanner Pro easily handles situations when you have printed document that should be send by email and there is no scanner nearby. The application incorporates special algorithms that enhance image quality to make it as readable as possible."

The App: Readdle has come out with an application that they claim turns your iPhone into a portable scanner. But can it really compare to a scanner in quality? We shall see!

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Figure 1: First impressions? Nice packaging!

I've used several protective covers for my various iPhones since my first one back in 2007, so I'd say I have quite a bit of experience with them. Last week I was sent one to try out on my iPhone 3GS from XO Skins and I was pleasantly surprised by a few things. Just what exactly you may ask? Read on!.

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The Claim: Just like the iPhone itself, Aspects encompasses beauty and ease of use. The clean and simple user interface makes aspect ratio calculations an absolute joy. Aspects doesn't just stop at pixels. It supports widths and heights in inches and centimeters, and resolutions in pixels per inch and pixels per centimeter, making it possible to calculate both screen-based and paper-based image sizes. Simply modify one value and Aspects takes care of the rest. Ratios Galore From standard 4:3 to wide 16:9 to old school 1.75:1, Aspects lets you select from twenty-three predefined ratios. And you can create your own, too!

The Application: Condensed into a two-screen UI, can Aspects really make the tedious chore of adjusting aspect ratios for your blog posts / multimedia projects "an absolute joy?" You're gonna have to read on to find out!

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"When the app store launched in 2008, you could review the app even if you didn't buy it. As a result there were a lot of static reviews, both good and bad, as companies tried to push their products or topple competitors. In September, Apple announced a ban on non-customer reviews from the apps, but the old reviews were still visible."

This is a great day for developers whose apps were unfairly panned by people who had never bother trying them. The situation at the App Store was really bad. It reminded me of the situation on Amazon with Spore where people who didn't even buy the game were slamming it with negative reviews just because of the DRM and had never even played the game. It's not fair to developers, and this ought to further ingratiate Apple with a group of people they need and who, for the most part recently, haven't been too happy with them.