In a long list of products from WorldCard, WorldCard HD manages contacts in one powerful app. Utilizing Optical Character Recognition, the app will import contact information from photos of business cards, making it a decent solution for that giant Rolodex taking up space on your desk.
Function
While I would not agree the app is completely a “Customer Relationship Manager,” as the iTunes description contends, I do appreciate the various ways to interact with contact data. The information is presented in a user-friendly manner and a helpful popup gives instructions on the initial launch. At the core, WorldCard HD is an expensive address book; however, the added utilities have their advantages.
To begin, create contacts in-app or from internal albums, the camera, iTunes file sharing, or iPad Address Book. The address book has the standard sections one would find in any contact list. The list allows for one-touch email, address location, FaceTime calls, and web page browsing. Address location can populate a map of multiple contacts at once, which streamlines errand-running. Interestingly, the app will use the compiled information to search Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter to self populate social media information.
iCloud and Dropbox integration provides for import/exporting of information to the cloud for backups and data exchange. Assumedly, the sync capability will keep information the same across other WorldCard platforms.
Scanning Cards
By far the most useful feature is adding contacts by scanning their business card. I downloaded the iPhone version of this app a long time ago and was not immediately impressed with the Optical Character Recognition; however, in the current version of WorldCard HD, the recognition is staggeringly accurate. Utilizing the built in iPad camera, the app scans the card for pertinent information. Once recognized, the information is categorized by type and even labeled appropriately.
While the information is transcribed accurately, the field information is sometimes in accurate. For an example, I scanned a colleague’s business card. The department is “University Unions and Student Activities” and the job title was “Graduate Assistant for Student Programming.” WorldCard listed “University Unions,” “& Student Activities,” and “Graduate Assistant” all as separate job titles. Once all of the fields are auto populated after the scan, the user can edit the stored contact information to remedy any confusions.
The scanned business card is then saved to that contact information. I appreciated the ability to crop the image to only the card, which is done automatically using the native edit tool. Thanks to the iPad’s camera, the business card images are crisp and clean.
Conclusion [rating: 4/5]
WorldCard HD ($14.99, App Store) is a powerful contact management app with a nice set of bells and whistles. I found the two most useful tools to be the business card scanner and the cloud-based contact back up. Additionally, the various ways to import and export the data makes for a complete package. However, at such a high price, I would expect the job description and department titles to work flawlessly and for the app to work both on the iPad and iPhone ($6.99, App Store).
Pros
- Extremely accurate text recognition
- Cloud based backups
- Import/Export data
- Integrate/merge with iPad Address Book
Cons
- Price
- Job titles and department names get confused
