WorldCard Mobile Review

Developer: Penpower Technology, Ltd.
Price: $5.99
Version Reviewed: 1.2.4

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Carrying and/or keeping track of an ever-growing horde of business cards can be frustrating. Several iPhone application developers have recognized the iPhone's capability to handle our business card needs and have created apps that scan, store and integrate business card data with our Contacts/Address Book. WorldCard Mobile is one such application. We've done a comparison of the three best options currently available, but here's a closer look at WorldCard Mobile.

WorldCard Mobile offers its users the following features:

WorldCard Mobile offers a clean, user-friendly main menu:

From the main menu, users can take a picture, select an image from their Camera Roll/Photo Library (the app has no built-in storage/library), access Settings (which only contains a language choice option: Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish), access built-in help (which features a product demo) and About.

When scanning using WorldCard Mobile, it scanned a portion of the card's data correctly:

But trying to repeatedly get it to properly scan the field it missed (email address) proved to be an exercise in frustration and the results made no sense. I scanned several business cards and WorldCard Mobile’s data recognition technology performed inconsistently, ultimately failing to recognize or improperly recognizing several data fields each scan:

After its initial scan, WorldCard Mobile automatically populates contact fields and gives users the option to add/integrate the contact information into their existing contacts. It also allows its users to select a portion of the card, using a blue crop box, to select text for analysis. After selecting text, users are prompted to select 1 of 11 categories: Name, Company, Department, Job Title, Phone, Mobile, Work Fax, Email, URL, Address and Photo:

WorldCard Mobile offers no built-in storage options. Cards/images are stored and selected from the user’s Camera Roll or Photo Library. The lack of storage options forces the user to store business card images to their Camera Roll/Photo Library. I use my Camera Roll frequently and the last thing I want to have to do is sift through my collection of business cards before getting to a particular image I want to use.

In summary, my experience with WorldCard Mobile was disappointing and frustrating. I tried over and again to scan 3 different business cards and couldn’t retrieve the appropriate information. Results were inconsistent/consistently wrong and the application’s refusal to bring me back to the main screen reveal much work needs to be done before WorldCard Mobile is worth its asking price.