Today Readdle announced the release of Scanner Pro, an application that transforms the iPhone into a portible PDF scanner.

Scanner Pro allows “iPhone owners scan multipage documents into PDF files, send them by email, access over Wi-Fi and even upload to MobileMe, iDisk or any other WebDAV enabled server… Scanner Pro is designed to scan multi page documents and transform them into industry standard PDF files. It allows people to set password on PDF document to protect data with 40-bit RC4 level encryption… To overcome weaknesses of the iPhone camera, Scanner Pro uses special algorithms to enhance image quality. Additionally, users can manually adjust brightness and contrast to make text look even better.”

For more information about Scanner Pro, check out the screenshots, App Store description and Press Release below.

ScreenShots

App Store Description:

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.

With Scanner Pro you can:

SCAN MULTIPAGE DOCUMENTS
Scanner Pro can handle any type of document ranging from simple one page letters to multipage agreements.

MAKE INDUSTRY STANDARD PDF FILES
All scanned document are produced as industry standard PDF files.

PROTECT DOCUMENTS WITH PASSWORD
Scanner Pro allows you to set password for PDF files you create. Only people who know the password will be able to open the document.

TRANSFER DOCUMENTS TO MAC AND PC
Mount Scanner Pro as a shared network drive over Wi-Fi network to any computer and copy scanned PDF files from iPhone. No additional software is required.

SEND SCANS BY EMAIL
Just scan any document you want and tap send button. Yes, it’s that simple.

PREVIEW DOCUMENTS BEFORE SENDING
Built-in PDF viewer allows to preview your scans exactly the same as they will look on desktop computer.

UPLOAD SCANS TO ONLINE FILE STORAGES
- MobileMe iDisk
- Box.Net
- Humyo
- Other WebDAV compatible online storages

Press Release:

Title
Scanners Pro transforms iPhone into portable PDF scanner

Summary
Odessa, Ukraine – October 12, 2009 – Today Readdle announces the release of Scanner Pro, an
iPhone application that transforms the device into portable scanner. It lets iPhone owners scan multi
page documents into PDF files, send them by email, access over Wi-Fi and even upload to MobileMe
iDisk or any other WebDAV enabled server. Scanner Pro is available exclusively on the Apple App Store
at USD $6.99.

Body
Odessa, Ukraine – October 12, 2009 – Today Readdle announces the release of Scanner Pro, an
iPhone application that transforms the device into portable scanner. It lets iPhone owners scan multi
page documents into PDF files, send them by email, access over Wi-Fi and even upload to MobileMe
iDisk or any other WebDAV enabled server. Scanner Pro is available exclusively on the Apple App Store
at USD $6.99.

Scanner Pro is designed to scan multi page documents and transform them into industry standard PDF
files. It allows people to set password on PDF document to protect data with 40-bit RC4 level encryption.
This feature is very important for those who use iPhones for work since many business documents
contain sensible information that should be protected from unauthorized access after scanning.

To overcome weaknesses of the iPhone camera, Scanner Pro uses special algorithms to enhance
image quality. Additionally, users can manually adjust brightness and contrast to make text look even
better. Also, since major documents are text based, Scanner Pro can automatically convert all
documents into grayscale thus greatly reducing size of the resulting document.

Scanner Pro supports a number of ways to share PDF documents after scanning. The file can be
uploaded to MobileMe iDisk, Box.Net, Humyo and any other WebDAV enabled file storage; sent by
email using current iPhone Mail account and even transferred to Mac or PC computer over Wi-Fi.
“Situations when there is printed document that should be send by email and there is no scanner nearby
is familiar to many business people including myself,” – explains Alexander Tyagulsky, Readdle CMO.
“Scanner Pro is made to save the day when this happens to you.”

Pricing and Availability:
Scanner Pro is available exclusively on the Apple App Store at USD $6.99:
http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=333710667&mt=8
The application is compatible with iPhones running iPhone OS 2.2.1 and later.

PDF Expert is “a professional PDF document reader solution for the iPhone. PDF Expert extends PDF viewing capabilities of the iPhone along with a large set of professional functions including saving PDF email attachments, full text document search, support for password protected documents, navigation through embedded PDF bookmarks and handling for large PDF files.” Readdle is a company that brings us quite a few notable apps such as Encrypto, Take A Note, ReaddleDocs, Air Sail and many others. Below is the App Store description of the app and the full press release for PDF Expert.

App Store Description:

PDF Expert provides professional set of functions to extend the power of iPhone PDF viewing capabilities. Saving PDF email attachments, full text search, support for password protected documents, navigation through embedded PDF bookmarks, handling large PDF files are the most essential to mention.

With PDF Expert you can:

SAVE EMAIL ATTACHMENTS. INCLUDING PASSWORD PROTECTED ONES.
- Forward email with attachment to your unique Readdle Storage e-mail address and save it to your device using PDF Expert.
- PDF Expert opens password protected PDF documents. Please note that DRM protected files are not supported.

READ ANY PDF THE WAY YOU WANT
- Navigate through the document using embedded bookmarks. Great for reading ebooks by topics and chapters.
- Full screen and landscape modes to maximize screen usage
- Search for keyword or phrase
- Go to specific page
- Create your own bookmarks
- Open almost any PDF file. Tested on 1400+ page books.

SHARE THE TEXT YOU READ
- Select text from the PDF file you are reading, copy to clipboard and paste into any application you want.
- Email files stored inside PDF Expert to your colleagues and partners

READ NON-PDF DOCUMENTS AS WELL
Besides PDF files, PDF Experts allows viewing Microsoft Office files, iWork documents, HTML, TXT and image files.

USE YOUR IPHONE AS A WIRELESS DRIVE
Mount PDF Expert as a shared network drive over Wi-Fi network to any computer and copy documents to the iPhone using simple Drag & Drop. No additional software required.

TRANSFER FILES TO YOUR iPHONE WITH OR WITHOUT WI-FI
PDF Expert supports transferring files to your device using both EDGE or 3G network. Just upload your documents to Readdle Storage using regular Internet connection and instantly access them from PDF Expert.

USE OTHER ESSENTIAL FEATURES
- Password protection for your files
- Embedded zip/unzip archiver
- Fast scroll through large documents
- Flexible file management

Press Release

Odessa, Ukraine – July 14, 2009 – Today Readdle announces the release of PDF Expert, a professional PDF document reader solution for the iPhone. PDF Expert extends PDF viewing capabilities of the iPhone along with a large set of professional functions including saving PDF email attachments, full text document search, support for password protected documents, navigation through embedded PDF bookmarks and handling for large PDF files. PDF Expert is available exclusively on the Apple App Store at USD $4.99.

Saving email PDF attachments to the iPhone is one of the most notable PDF Expert features. It is supported via Readdle Storage, Readdle’s iPhone friendly cloud file storage solution. This capability, previously missing on the iPhone, combined with the ability to read password protected PDF documents, makes PDF Expert the first working way to read password protected PDF email attachments on the iPhone.

The process of saving email attachment to the iPhone is pretty straightforward; users forward an email with attachments to their dedicated Readdle Storage email address. Readdle Storage processes the email and saves all attached documents to the users file storage. Once a document has been saved to Readdle Storage, only a few taps are needed to download it to the iPhone using PDF Expert.

Quick navigation through the document and support for large PDF files are two additional functions which are essential for professional users. PDF Expert excels in document navigation by implementing full-text search, go to page navigation, fast document scroll and embedded PDF bookmarks. Also, PDF Expert opens many PDF files that are too large for the built-in iPhone viewer.

“In our analysis of App Store customer feedback we have discovered a high demand for a professional PDF reader application for the iPhone. The iPhone’s built-in PDF viewer is great, however it does not support several features which are essential for iPhone business users; such as saving PDF attachments to the iPhone and support for password protected PDFs. PDF Expert is the product that meets the needs of a growing population of iPhone users and it further extends iPhone business usage,” explains Igor Zhadanov, Readdle CEO.

PDF Expert is not limited to just PDF files; its document viewer also handles Microsoft Office files, iWork documents, HTML, TXT and image files. The built-in network file server allows users to mount PDF Expert as a shared network drive over a Wi-Fi network to any computer equipped with Mac OS X 1.4 or later, Windows XP or Windows Vista and copy documents to the iPhone using simple drag & drop or copy & paste.

Pricing and Availability:
Readdle Storage is available as a free service for all PDF Expert users. PDF Expert is available for the special price of $4.99 (USD) exclusively on the App Store.

I’m not a huge business card user. In fact, I carry a few of them mostly so I can throw them into a fishbowl in order to win a free lunch at a restaurant. However, I can imagine how useful it would be to have an application that would take business cards and effortlessly import their information into your contacts list. CardSnap attempts to address this by using a proprietary method similar to OCR but not really (or so says the app’s description).

Upon opening (and waiting for) CardSnap, you are given the option to use the camera to snap a picture of the business card. You can also load photos from your camera roll or from your photo library. However, since the main selling point is to use this application in real time, I wanted to focus on the camera option. After taking a picture, you can move and scale your picture before deciding to upload to the servers at CardSnap. Once you’re satisfied with your business card’s readability (this may take some time with the iPhone’s pitiful camera), you submit the card, and wait for a response. Other options in the application include a menu to review your submitted cards, an info screen that offers a user’s guide, and a settings screen that allows you to use groups with your contacts.

I submitted a few business cards several times and was impressed on occasion with the response from CardSnap. We all know that the camera on the iPhone is not very good, and the picture quality is marginal at best. To the application’s defense, the user guide strongly recommends the use of Griffin’s Clarifi case. I was unable to test with this, so I had to rely on the standard camera app as I imagine most iPhone users would as well. With my work business card, the app said that there were some illegible fields, and I should probably review these before accepting it as a contact. Indeed, there was an error in my name, and a wrong digit in my work phone number. Other than that, though, I was impressed with how many of the details were picked up by the service and assigned to the correct field. On my wife’s business card, CardSnap got everything right, though interestingly, it did choose to skip a few items like a web address and part of her title.

Thankfully, there have been a few updates since CardSnap’s original release. When I first downloaded this app, stability was a major issue as the initial load time was long, and I had to reopen the application quite regularly. If you were to use this application on a regular basis, you might want to invest in the Clarifi case, though there’s no guarantee that the application will still get all of the fields correct. One positive test included a submission that I made using my Nikon D60 camera. CardSnap read this photo within hours and it did a perfect job of interpreting all of the fields correctly. Unfortunately, this is not a practical solution, and you might as well spend the time inputting your business cards by hand.

In the end, I would think the goal for CardSnap is to be an application that can scan business cards efficiently, effortlessly, and accurately. So far, the application succeeds in only some of these areas. It has a very simple interface, so it is possible to scan multiple business cards in a short amount of time. The program integrates well with your built-in contacts list, and it has shown high levels of accuracy when photo quality is high. I would love to see push notifications for business cards that have been reviewed as I had to open the application to check on the status. I understand the high price tag ($9.99) since CardSnap is more of an advanced application that recognizes fields rather than just translating images to text. However, for this price, one needs to demand better recognition for blurry images or wait until the camera on the iPhone improves. Perhaps, the 3GS will have better results. If you would like to try CardSnap before plunking down $10, there is a lite version, but it will still cost you $0.99. The limitation is that the app will only read 6 fields as opposed to 17. My recommendation is that CardSnap will be worth it if you receive and need to store a lot of business cards on a regular basis and you are willing to invest in either the iPhone 3GS and/or the Griffin Clarifi case.

Note: This application is currently only compatible with English keyboards.

ScreenShots

We wrote a post about a month ago saying that ReaddleDocs was having a half price sale and that they had submitted an update to Apple. Well, it seems the update has finally went through…version 1.5 of ReaddleDocs is now available in the App Store. The update supports iWork’09 files, allows the ability to upload files to WebDAV enabled online file storage systems like MobileMe iDisk and is compatibility with iPhone OS 3.0 firmware. Below is the full press release. Check out David’s full review of ReaddleDocs HERE.

Press Release

Title
ReaddleDocs 1.5 adds iWork ‘09 support to iPhone

Summary

Readdle today announces the immediate availability of ReaddleDocs 1.5, a new version of their popular document and file management solution for the iPhone, capable to view iWork ‘09 documents, upload files to WebDAV enabled online file storage systems like MobileMe iDisk and compatibility with iPhone OS 3.0. ReaddleDocs 1.5 is available on Apple App Store at $4.99 to new customers and as a free upgrade for existing users.

Body

Readdle today announces the immediate availability of ReaddleDocs 1.5, a new version of their popular document and file management solution for the iPhone, capable to view iWork ‘09 documents, upload files to WebDAV enabled online file storage systems like MobileMe iDisk and compatibility with iPhone OS 3.0. ReaddleDocs 1.5 is available on Apple App Store at $4.99 to new customers and as a free upgrade for existing users.

ReaddleDocs combines a network file server, web storage client, web browser, file manager and powerful document viewer within a single iPhone business application. It allows people to transfer documents to their devices over Wi-Fi and 3G in a number of ways, view them on the go, send by email and share with other iPhone users with ease.

Support for iWork ‘09 documents is the main addition of the ReaddleDocs 1.5 that overcomes one of the iPhone 2.x firmware major flaws. Individuals who use iPhone OS 2.x could view iWork ‘09 documents saved with preview while iPhone OS 3.0 users could read all iWork ‘09 documents without restrictions. Combined with ReaddleDocs’ ability to save email attachments, recently highlighted by Walt Mossberg in The Wall Street Journal, it makes ReaddleDocs 1.5 the best way to read iWork ‘09 attachments on the iPhone.

Another key ReaddleDocs 1.5 feature is uploading files and photos from iPhone to MobileMe iDisk or any other WebDAV compatible online file storage. It allows MobileMe subscribers to share their documents and images with friends and colleagues right from the iPhone.

“Viewing Work ‘09 documents and uploading files to iDisk are among the most requested features for document viewers in the App Store,” explains Alexander Tyagulsky, Readdle CMO. “Implementing these functions in ReaddleDocs makes it even more useful and valuable for our customers.”

Pricing and Availability:
ReaddleDocs is available for the special price of $4.99 (USD) exclusively on the App Store.

ReaddleDocs, a document and file management solutions, is on sale for half price ($4.99) until Sunday, May 17th. David did a review of ReaddleDocs about a month ago (check it out HERE) and was comfortable recommending it at the $9.99 price range so, you will definitely want to check it out now that it is $4.99. The developer has also said that they have submitted an update to Apple that contains “significant improvements and new features.” So, get it now while it is half price and reap the benefits of the update when it comes out!

Interestingly, after writing a review about iDownload, and reading and responding to a reader’s comment, I began to consider what it would be like to tap into the possibility of using the iPhone as a mobile storage utility. First, I explored Air Sharing, since I downloaded it for free a few months ago, but never actually setup the program. I was impressed with its ease of use, but was disappointed that only WiFi access was available. Upon reading that Readdledocs supported 3G or EDGE connections as well, I became further intrigued.

Overview
Similar to Air Sharing, upon opening Readdledocs, you can view your files and file folders available on your iPhone. When you open a file, the document appears on screen, and the application supports many file formats including the common MS Office file types and PDF files. There is an extensive PDF manual that comes with the program that effectively explains all of the features that come with this program. There are a lot of bells and whistles included (reading ebooks, iDisk access, and exchanging files with other users), but I will stick to the ones that mattered to me the most. In addition to the iPhone’s storage, your purchase of Readdledocs comes with a 512 MB of online storage where you can keep more files of your choosing. A web browser is also included for you to download documents directly into Readdledocs. For an extensive list of features, check out their website.

You’ve got files.
Since I had experience setting up the iPhone as a network drive with Air Sharing, the initial setup with Readdledocs was fairly straightforward. Within minutes, I had access to my iPhone’s storage capacity through my home computer. File transfer was very easy and relatively quick as well. Viewing documents on the iPhone was speedy, though I noticed a bit of lag with larger files and some of my Excel spreadsheet files. As I mentioned above, Readdledocs advertises file access via 3G and EDGE connections. This is true, though the access is to your online storage files, not to your iPhone’s files. To the developer’s defense, Apple probably has something to do with restricting access to WiFi only. Readdledocs gives you 512 MB of online storage with the iPhone application, as well as an option to purchase additional amounts of storage space. Thus, you can store files on your iPhone for WiFi access, or online for both WiFi and 3G/EDGE access.

Close, but I think I still need a flash drive.
If I had steady WiFi access at my workplace, I think that I would eliminate my flash drive and use my iPhone along with Readdledocs as my go-to option for storing documents. Since I don’t, I would need to upload most of my important documents online so I could then access them anywhere including on my iPhone. With only 512 MB of free space, and the potential to lose these documents (what happens if the company goes under or if the server is unavailable?), Readdledocs does not provide the complete solution to the file storage dilemma for me. Furthermore, there is no editing features, emailing files was a bit sluggish, and large files tend to frustrate the app a little bit.

Conclusion
Overall, Readdledocs excels in several areas. It’s user interface is intuitive, clean, and comprehensive. The included manual also helps you with setup and provides details on all of the included features. With this neat program, you can easily store files on your iPhone (downloaded or transferred from your computer), email them (in theory – I had some challenges with this), and view nearly all types of documents. Complaints in iTunes reviews have mostly been about the application’s price, and I agree that it’s a bit steep at $9.99. Air Sharing retails for $4.99 now, but I do prefer Readdledocs, and would be comfortable recommending it at the higher price point. The key is whether you will have WiFi access wherever you plan on using the app or if 512mb of free storage is enough for you. If so, then this app is worth the investment.