Android App of the Day: QR Droid

Have you ever seen a large square-shaped code while flipping through one of your favorite magazines? Maybe you weren’t sure what it was or how to scan it? What you saw was a QR code and for anyone not familiar with these codes, they are thought of as the ‘evolution’ of normal bar codes. QR codes can hold more information and are more flexible than the traditional bar code. You can share contact information, links, geo-locations and more by using your smartphone camera to scan a QR code. Once you’ve scanned a QR code you will have instant access to the information inside. Sounds good right? Now you just need the right Android app to facilitate all of your new-found QR code power. That’s where QR Droid comes into play. This app lets you quickly scan QR codes and with the app’s previewer you can instantly see, for example, a link to a YouTube video, the video’s image, title and duration, and much more. Outside of simply scanning QR codes with ease, this app truly lets you explore the possibilities of creating your own QR codes.

Pros:

• Quickly scan QR Codes immediately after opening app
• Create your own QR codes
• Create QR Codes for contacts, URL, calendar events and more
• Reliable previewer
• UI is clean, well designed, not buggy
• Easy to navigate through
• Shortcuts available
• Free

How it works:

After a quick download the app opens up your camera app making it really easy to scan a QR code immediately upon opening up QR Droid. There are four main tabs on the bottom of the app providing you with the option to either scan, view your QR code history, create a QR code of your own, or access additional features.

How to scan a QR code
• Open QR Droid
• Center QR code in your camera’s viewfinder. QR Droid will start scanning immediately. (Some devices need as much as 3 feet between the code and the camera, to be able to focus)
• Scanned information will be shown, without pressing anything

How to share information

• Open QR Droid
• Touch button “Create“, followed by any option, according to what you want to share
• Follow on-screen instructions until you see a QR code
• Show that QR code to a friend. He’ll be able to scan it with his camera from your screen, and get shared information

I’ve included various uses for creating your own QR codes below:

• Select a contact from your address book and convert it to a QR code then you can share it with other contacts who have a QR reader.
• The URL Address function can encode a hyperlink and you can then share any URL as a QR code.
• Calendar event option will let you encode an event’s title, start and end times, dates, time zone, location, and description. Once the event is in QR code form, it can appear in the Calendar app automatically when you scan the code.
• You can select from your installed apps and make a QR code. You can then e-mail the QR code to a friend for them to scan and then install the app.
• Phone number option lets you select a number from your address book to encode
• Free text allows you to encode any combination of text

Conclusion:

QR Droid is well designed with a clean UI that is simple to navigate through. The app allows you to quickly scan a QR code and gives you all the options you need to create your own set of QR codes. I am always reading novels and magazines and find myself running into QR codes on a daily basis. QR Droid has one of the best previewers that I have come across and has yet to let me down. Creating my own QR codes has been a breeze and I use the creation options more than I ever anticipated. Overall I prefer QR Droid over similar apps currently available in the Play Store as this really is a single app to handle all your QR code related needs.

QR Droid is available for free in the Google Play Store. Requires Android 2.0 and higher. Play Link

This is part of our Android App of the Day series. We take our favorite app for Android for each day and post it here for you to check out. Feel free to check out all of our App of the Day posts here.