9to5mac:
When entering a credit card number into a form online to, for example, make a purchase, Safari already allowed users to quickly select credit cards stored in its Passwords & AutoFill settings. You can still do that, but in iOS 8 you’ll now also have the option to select “Scan Credit Card” and snap a picture of the card. Apple then uses optical character recognition of sorts to input the number into the text field in Safari.
That’s pretty cool!
I’ll be impressed if that OCR can read from some of the darker, denser designs some issuers put on their cards.
Seems like a natural evolution from gift card bar code scanning. I’ve seen an app based on LevelUp’s technology scan a dark credit card in a dark environment and get it right. I’m sure Apple will as well.
That was my thought also – Extending the tech they already use on gift card.
Remember that character locations and shapes are standardized on credit cards. (ISO/IEC 7811-1:2002).
It’s much easier to do OCR when you know where the characters are, how big they should be, and what the format is (15 or 16 characters grouped in a specific way, for almost all cards)…
(I believe there’s some typeface standardization, but the Standard document isn’t free, so I can’t confirm; certainly there’s no huge variation and legibility takes the forefront in any case.)
I’m looking forward to when we get WordLens-style automatic OCR in the camera that can detect URLs and make them tappable. (QR codes: Here’s the final nail for your coffin.)
Finally! OS X too?
Fair point.
Neat. When I first heard this I thought it was like Google Wallet but realized it was for browser input.
Good update.
Me, I’m looking forward to an iOS keyboard that can type QR code values. 🙂