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DocScanner successfully transitions from iOS to Mac app
Today I spent a half hour playing around with the first iOS app to Mac OS X app port I've gotten my hands on, and if DocScanner is any indication of the quality and usability of other iOS apps transitioning to the Mac, the Mac App Store is gonna rock indeed. DocScanner iPhone is an existing app that turns your iPhone into an OCR scanner. You simply snap a photograph of a document, and the app uses built-in OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology to extract the text from the document. The app then lets you save the text as a PDF for emailing or sharing with Evernote. DocScanner Mac is the OS X version of the iPhone app that works just as well and offers added functionality because it allows you to turn any camera into an OCR scanner. Simply snap a picture, import it to your Mac then drag it to DocScanner Mac's interface. You'll then be presented with a PDF version of the text that you can copy and paste into any editable document. The logic for bringing DocScanner from the iPhone to the Mac doesn't end with simply allowing you to use any camera as an OCR scanner. Porting the iOS app to Mac OS X allows DocScanner to take advantage of the OpenGL 3D accelerated graphics on your Mac. The results are much faster image processing and OCR extraction than you could ever hope to get on your iPhone. Out of the hundreds of thousands of apps for iOS, a large majority of them would probably not offer added user value if they were ported over to Mac OS X (like currency apps or apps that are fronts for websites such as Mint or Yelp). But an app like DocScanner is an excellent example of the usefulness that select iOS-to-Mac ports will provide. DocScanner iPhone is on sale now on the App Store for US$0.99. DocScanner Mac makes its debut tomorrow exclusively in the Mac App Store for $14.99.
