iOS App of the Day: CardMunch
Do you have an overwhelming pile of business cards that are just lying around collecting dust? While paper business cards can be a fantastic way to quickly exchange contact information, they are often easily lost or misplaced. If you are suffering from this issue, then the CardMunch app for iOS might be the perfect solution. This app offers an accurate and reliable way to add those pesky business cards right into your smartphone’s address book. What’s special about CardMunch is that this app uses real people to transcribe an image of the business card ensuring high accuracy.
Pros:
- Convert business cards to address book contacts
- Heavy LinkedIn integration
- View relevant LinkedIn profile info, connections in common, work history, and more, for the cards you scan
- Improved card capture experience for faster and easier card scanning
- Manual transcription ensures high accuracy for scanned cards
- Newly revamped user interface and visual experience
Cons:
- Transcription can take up to 10 minutes
How it works:
Step 1. Capture an image of a business card.
Step 2. The image is sent to CardMunch where they manually transcribe the business card. This insures accuracy.
Step 3. The contact is returned to your phone within minutes.
CardMunch is heavily integrated with LinkedIn, so you will need a LinkedIn account to sign into CardMunch. After you are logged in, simply take a picture of a business card by tapping on the camera icon at the bottom of the home screen. This will pop up the CardMunch camera which will prompt you to align the business card in the green square. CardMunch will then capture the picture of the business card and from there you can either accept the image or choose to retake it. Once you accept the image CardMunch sends it to their transcription team and a push notification is sent to your device once it is completed. On average transcription took approximately 10 minutes. While the process may appear to be lengthy, the end result is worth the wait. Each time a business card was completed and added to my contact list it was %100 accurate. I loved that the image of the business card is kept with the contact, and CardMunch adds the information under the Contact’s name and under a list of Companies.
Due to the fact that LinkedIn purchased CardMunch you can also use the app to invite new contacts to your LinkedIn network. The app has a “follow up” feature which lets you send an email to any contact you have stored within the app. These features make it easy to grow and manage your professional network either within the confines of the CardMunch app or through its LinkedIn integration.
Conclusion:
CardMunch is an ideal app for anyone searching for an accurate business card reader. While the transcription process is lengthy, the end result is highly accurate and worth the wait. As most business professionals already have a LinkedIn network downloading the CardMunch app makes it simple to grow your existing contact list.
CardMunch is available for free in the iTunes Store. Requirements: Compatible with iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPod touch (4th generation), iPad 2 Wi-Fi, iPad 2 Wi-Fi + 3G, iPad (3rd generation) and iPad Wi-Fi + 4G.Requires iOS 4.0 or later. iTunes Link
This is part of our iOS App of the Day series. We take our favorite app for iOS 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.
