The mind of the six billionth one…
Posts tagged App Store
Qrafter reached version 2 in only five months
2Qrafter first appeared on the App Store at the end of January 2011 and got a lot of positive feedback from its users and the QR Code community as a newcomer. It is the highest rated and most useful QR Code app on the App Store and I am doing my best to keep it that way.
Now, we are at the end of June, and Qrafter has already reached version 2. I promised a complete and robust QR Code generator when I first put it on the App Store and after five months, it is ready for use. Here are some facts about it:
- It can encode many different content types into the QR Code including URLs, your location, contact information from address books including Exchange and Gmail, and more.
- It can change the color of the QR Code it creates.
- It can save the QR Code to your photo albums, can email it, and it can even print it directly from inside the app to AirPrint supporting printers.
- It can encode non-ASCII characters and even Japanese, Cyrillic and Hebrew characters unlike other inferior generators.
- It works offline, so you don’t need any network connectivity to create QR Codes whatsoever.
Qrafter for iPhone 1.5 released
0Qrafter v1.5 was just approved by Apple. I wasn’t going to release a new version until v2.0 which will include a complete QR Code generator, but v1.5 was needed.
Most users of Qrafter who use older iPhones i.e. iPhone 3G, had problems with scanning small QR Codes. And on most printed materials, there are small QR Codes. So in this version, I added a special sharpening algorithm which lets Qrafter scan up to 40% smaller codes. It also lets Qrafter scan QR Codes which have less contrast between foreground and background. The shortcoming of this algorithm is, it makes the scanning process a little slower, but I think this is an acceptable compromise.
This version also includes a cropping option when scanning from photo library. As that adds one more step to image selection process, it is optional. Qrafter always looks to be more user friendly, and convenient.
You can download Qrafter by clicking the badge below:
Qrafter for iPhone 1.4 released
0Qrafter v1.4 is on the App Store for a few days, but I only now found the time to talk about it.
The vCard parser’s evolution continues. It is probably better than Apple’s own vCard implementation now. And I still have a few things in my mind that will be added to the next release.
But the highlight of this release is the added generator framework. You can now regenerate your scanned QR Codes when you tap Display QR Code on the detail screen. It can change colors and it lets you send the QR Code as PNG or SVG. Yes, it’s the only generator framework on iPhone that can create vector output. This framework will be the foundation of the complete QR Code generator that will soon be available.
You can download Qrafter by clicking the badge below:
Qrafter for iPhone 1.3 released
4Qrafter v1.3 has been approved by Apple and is on the App Store now.
This version adds an even more advanced vCard parser which can detect broken vCards and attempt to repair their formatting while warning the user in the process. And a new feature has been added to the Advanced Functionality Pack which is available as an in app purchase, that will let you send your history items as a CSV file attachment to any e-mail address you want.
You can download Qrafter by clicking the badge below:
How to download a vCard on iPhone or iPad using Qrafter
9As you know, Safari on iPhone and iPad does not let you download and save a vCard directly to your Address Book. When you try to go to a vCard URL, you’ll encounter a popup displaying “Safari cannot download this file”. So, you’ll have to download the vCard on your computer, send it via e-mail to yourself, and open it in Mail app to export the vCard to your Address Book. Not that convenient…
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- Without Qrafter installed
Now, Qrafter comes to your rescue. While it is primarily a QR Code reader, it has a new advanced paid feature that will let you download and open vCards from Safari. When you install Qrafter and go to a vCard URL on Safari (you may need to restart Safari altogether if you are using iPhone 3GS or iPhone 4), you’ll now see a new page, letting you open the vCard in Qrafter. Simply tap the button saying “Open in Qrafter” and your vCard will be opened. How convenient! You’ll also be able to download vCard URLs scanned from QR Codes by Qrafter.
Qrafter for iPhone 1.2 released
0Qrafter v1.2 was approved by Apple after waiting for 9 days. With this update, Qrafter became the most advanced QR Code reader on iPhone. Let me tell you why.
This version can read color inverted QR Codes. While this is not a feature that is exclusive to Qrafter, it is an addition that will let you scan more QR Codes. Also Qrafter speaks German now, thanks to Wolfgang Krivanek.
But the big change in this version is that it can download and open vCards directly using its internal web browser or Safari. Check out this post for more details.
You can download Qrafter by clicking the badge below:
Qrafter for iPhone 1.1 released
2Qrafter has been updated to v1.1. While it seems like it was an early update, I didn’t want to miss the chance to answer the initial feedbacks and feature requests.
v1.1 has Foursquare support, easy venue check-ins, Facebook, Yelp and Gowalla URLs support, also a new setting called “Scan and Go” to navigate to scanned web or map URLs immediately. Be aware that Foursquare has a serious bug, and it will always crash on iPhone 3G when called externally. I filed a bug on their site about this. You can download Qrafter by clicking the badge below. Your ratings and reviews on the App Store will be much appreciated:
Qrafter for iPhone 1.0 released
12I have been using an iPhone since 2007 (and still using my old iPhone 3G without problems). As I am into QR Codes, one of the first apps I downloaded was BarCodes from ZXing. It was a slow QR Code scanner which has steadily grown into a great QR Code scanning API supported by the open source software community. After that, a lot of QR Code scanning apps popped up and I tried a lot of them.
I was never satisfied with any of them completely. See, scanning the contents of QR Codes was not hard anymore thanks to ZXing, but parsing the contents to get a meaningful output was hard. And most of the scanners I used, couldn’t parse those contents successfully enough. By that time, I was starting to get tempted by the development tools Apple was providing. At last I wanted to take the matter into my own hands and write a QR Code scanner as useful and complete as my QR Code Generator.
