PDF Expert 2.2 – one more reason to replace a laptop with the iPad

Readdle today updated its cutting edge application for editing PDF forms and annotating PDF documents.

PDF Expert 2.2 is now able to flatten signature, filled forms data, and annotations, making it possible to protect PDF files from editing and view all annotations within any PDF reader application.

There are a few reasons that lawyers, attorneys or real estate agents might want to flatten a document: to prevent PDF file from editing data inside it, finalize the signature on the document and ensure that all annotations can be viewed with any PDF reader application.

The latest version of PDF Expert for iPad makes the flattening process flawless, taking just a single tap to flatten a PDF file before emailing it.

One of the long-standing benefits of the PDF format is that it allows users to add notes, comments and highlights to PDF file. PDF Expert extended this capability making PDF annotations editable on the iPad. While lawyers tend to protect document from being changed, professors, students and medicals might well need the ability to edit existing annotations. Another feature that can come in handy is emailing PDF files along with the annotations summary to overview quickly all essential mark ups in the document.

“Finalized signature and field data are essential for lawyers and real estate agents. Preview summary of created annotations is a great way for students to share necessary information” said Igor Zhadanov, Readdle CEO. “In PDF Expert 2.2 all these features migrated from the desktop to make the iPad a viable laptop substitute.”

Pricing and Availability:

PDF Expert for iPad 2.2 is available on the Apple App Store at $9.99 to new customers and as a free update for existing PDF Expert for iPad owners.

About Readdle:
Founded in 2007, Readdle developes and publishes high quality iOS applclications for business and personal productivity. The company flagship products are Scanner Pro, an application which transforms the iPhone into portable scanner, and ReaddleDocs, a revolutionary file manager, document reader and attachment viewer for iPhone /iPod touch and iPad.

Scanner Pro, iPhone document scanner, gets major update

Today Readdle announces the release of Scanner Pro 2.0, the latest version of their popular iPhone application, which transforms the device into portable scanner. Scanner Pro 2.0 adds GoogleDocs integration, camera stabilization, automatic edge detection and passcode protection for the entire application. Scanner Pro 2.0 is available on the Apple App Store at $6.99 to new customers and as a free upgrade for existing users.

Scanner Pro 2.0 easily handles situations when a hard copy document should be scanned and there is no scanner nearby. It lets people scan multipage documents, email them and even upload to Dropbox, Evernote, MobileMe iDisk or any other WebDAV enabled server. The application incorporates special algorithms to enhance image quality and make it as readable as possible.
Google Docs integration allows taking the advantages of the recent optical character recognition function. It allows users to upload scans page by page to their Google Docs accounts and convert them into text documents for later editing on any desktop computer. There is also an option to upload a whole document as a PDF file.

Camera stabilization added in Scanner Pro 2.0 prevents images from becoming blurred while taking photos. Application automatically chooses the moment to take a shot so a shake caused by a hand movement is minimal.
Automatic page borders detection finds document edges on the image and crops it accordingly, while password protection prevents an unauthorized access to scans.

What advanced scanner features does Scanner Pro have?

• Ability to compose multi page documents
• All results are industry standard PDF files
• Optional 40-bit RC4 level PDF encryption
• Image quality enhancement algorithms
• Uploading files to MobileMe iDisk and other WebDAV enabled web storages

What does Scanner Pro let you do?

Scan multipage documents
Scanner Pro can handle any type of document ranging from simple one page letters to multipage agreements. You can add and remove pages, reorder them and even combine pages of different size, like A4 and A5, in one document.

Make industry standard PDF files
All scanned document are saved as PDF files that could be easily shared with other people and read on any computer and many mobile phones.

Protect documents with password
Scanner Pro allows you to set password for PDF files you create. Only people who know the password will be able to open the document.

Transfer documents to Mac and PC
Connect any Mac OS X, Windows XP and Windows Vista computer to the iPhone
running Scanner Pro via Wi-Fi and copy scanned PDF files from iPhone. No additional software required to make it work.

Send scans by email
Just scan any document you want and tap send button. Yes, it’s that simple.

Preview documents before sending
Built-in PDF viewer lets you preview scans exactly the same as they will look like for anyone who will read the document. You will always know what you are sending.

Upload Scans to online file storages
Scanner Pro supports uploading documents from the application to any WebDAV compatilbe web service like MobileMe iDisk, Box.Net and Humyo. It’s fast, reliable and easy to use.

Utilize Evernote integration
Higly anticipated Evernote integration lets you convert printed documents, receipts and even handwritten texts into searchable notes accessible from anywhere. Get rid of the paper!

Who are Scanner Pro competitors?
There are several products that position themselves similarly to Scanner Pro. Most well known of them are JotNot and DocScanner.

In short, why Scanner Pro is better for business?

• Designed to work with multipage documents
• Supports documents with landscape orientations
• Can create password protected PDF files
• Lets share documents in a number of ways

Facts at a glance
System Requirements
iPhone with 2.2.1 firmware

Pricing
USD $6.99.

Scanner Pro is available in the App Store. Check it out now!

Readdle’s Scanners Pro gets Evernote integration

Readdle has announced the release of Scanner Pro 1.1, a new version of the top paid business application that transforms Apple iPhone into portable scanner. Scanner Pro 1.1 introduces highly anticipated Evernote integration that lets people convert printed documents, receipts and even handwritten notes into searchable information accessible from the iPhone, PC/Mac or Web.

Scanner Pro processes a photo of a poorly lighted document, a snapshot of a business card at a wacky angle, or an off-kilter receipt into a straightened, cleaner version of its former self. Version 1.1 is capable to save these enhanced images directly to the Evernote accounts and allows Evernote recognition servers to convert these scans into searchable notes. Both free and premium Evernote users can use this integration.

To make integration more robust, Scanner Pro downloads information about tags and notebooks of the particular Evernote subscriber. Thus appropriate set of tags and notebook for upload can be chosen directly from Scanner Pro application.

“We are excited to discover new experience for iPhone users. Joint power of Scanner Pro and Evernote is so impressive that we can’t even count all possible usages for this bundle”, says Igor Zhadanov, Readdle CEO. “Capturing notes, business cards, gym schedules or even entire agreements combined with Evernote’s flexible tagging system allows you to collect and access any information you may need in your everyday life.”

At the same time Scanner Pro 1.1 implements several user suggested improvements like: stylish and intuitive user interface, image processing engine has been significantly improved as well. New version produces sharper and whiter images, features real time image adjustments and adds image export to iPhone photo library. The latter function allows usage of Scanner Pro together with popular iPhone fax applications.

Summary of New Features:

–  Evernote integration has expanded Scanner Pro features providing Evernote fun with the capability to save scanned pages directly at Evernote account.

–  Evernote recognition technology converts the text in the scans into searchable documents, that become available from Evernote application for the Mac, PC or iPhone.

–  Additionally implemented features allow assign titles, tags, and send scanned documents to the appropriate notebooks right from Scanner Pro application.

–  We have also improved Scanner Pro user interface, making it usage and intuitive and enhanced the application’s design.

–  New version produces sharper and whiter images, features real time image adjustments and adds image export to iPhone photo library.

Pricing and Availability:
Scanner Pro 1.1 is available on Apple App Store at $6.99 to the new customers and as a free upgrade for existing users. The application is compatible with iPhone OS 2.2.1 and later:

Check out my previous Scanner Pro review.

Check out Scanner Pro on iTunes now.

ReaddleDocs 1.6 makes reading PDFs on iPhone desktop class

Today, 2nd November 2009,  Readdle company announces the release of ReaddleDocs 1.6, a new version of the popular document viewer and file management solution for the iPhone. Readdle adds a professional PDF document viewer to the application. New PDF viewer supports full text document search, password protected documents, navigation through embedded PDF bookmarks and handling large PDF files. ReaddleDocs 1.6 is available on Apple App Store at $6.99 to new customers and as a free upgrade for existing users.

ReaddleDocs combines number of powerful document viewers, network file server, web storage client, web browser and file manager within a single iPhone business application. It allows copy files to the devices over Wi-Fi and 3G in a number of ways, view them on the go, send by email and share with other iPhone users with ease.

Existing ability to saving email attachments combined with its new possibility to read password protected PDF documents, makes ReaddleDocs 1.6 the best way to read password protected PDF files emailed on the iPhone.

Another two problems solved by ReaddleDocs 1.6 are: quick navigation through the document and support for large PDF files. ReaddleDocs 1.6 excels in document navigation by implemented full-text search, go to page navigation, fast document scroll and supporting embedded PDF bookmarks. Also, application opens most of PDF files that are too large for the built-in iPhone PDF viewer.

“New professional PDF viewer is very important addition to the extensive ReaddleDocs feature set, that significantly extends application utility for both the customers. However, we are already working on adding even more power to the PDF viewer with hyperliks and PDF editing capabilities. And this is just a few of the great features coming to ReaddleDocs later this fall,” notes Alexander Tyagulsky, Readdle CMO.

Readdle Storage is available as a free service for all ReaddleDocs users. ReaddleDocs 1.6 is available for the special price of $6.99 (USD) exclusively on the App Store:
http://itunes.com/app/ReaddleDocs

Previously, I reviewed ReaddleDocs here on my review site here.

Readdle’s BookReader makes reading e-books on iPhone simple

Odessa, Ukraine – October 16, 2009 – Today Readdle announces the immediate availability of BookReader, a stylish e-book reader iPhone application, that lets people read digital books from their collections like the paper ones. BookReader opens TXT, FB2, RTF, EPUB, HTML, and PDF e-books that could be copied from reader’s computer to the iPhone over Wi-Fi, 3G, EDGE and USB as well as searches and downloads books from Project Gutenberg. BookReader is available exclusively on the Apple App Store at USD $4.99.

Today Readdle announces the immediate availability of BookReader, a stylish e-book reader iPhone application, that lets people read digital books from their collections like the paper ones. BookReader opens TXT, FB2, RTF, EPUB, HTML, and PDF e-books without DRM protection that could be copied from reader’s computer to the iPhone over Wi-Fi, 3G and USB as well as searches and downloads books from Project Gutenberg.

BookReader has number of small handy functions like animated page flipping, night mode for reading in the dark, locking book orientation and adjustable text size. It also provides everything that people need to quickly navigate through the book: configurable bookmarks, full text search and fast scroll slider. It’s very natural to read e-books with BookReader.

“We’ve seen stylish and intuitive readers for the classics books, as well as for project Gutenberg collection. BookReader extends this realistic reading experience to your own e-book library. By the way, Project Gutenberg is also supported,” – explains Alexander Tyagulsky, Readdle CMO.

BookReader is designed to work with non DRM protected e-books in TXT, FB2, RTF, HTML, EPUB and PDF formats. eReader, iSilo, MobiPocket, Kindle, Plucker e-books are not supported. Also, people who don’t have wireless connection between their Mac or PC and iPhone could transfer their e-book to BookReader using USB cable and ReaddleWire software available at Readdle’s web site.

Pricing and Availability: BookReader is available exclusively on the Apple App Store at USD $4.99. The application is compatible with iPhone and iPod Touch running iPhone OS 3.0 and later

Check out BookReader on iTunes for $4.99 now.

Readdle’s Scanner Pro App Review

I got a chance recently to review Readdle’s new application – Scanner Pro. Scanner Pro is an iPhone application that uses the iPhone camera to scan printed documents into PDF files when there are no scanner located nearby the user. It lets people create multipage PDF documents, send them by email, upload to MobileMe iDisk or other webDAV servers and transfer them to your desktop computer over Wi-Fi. Scanner Pro has already taken 5th position of top in business category in iTunes App Store.

Scanner Pro is designed for individuals and small business customers, who need to scan documents when they are away from the office, view them on the move and share them with other people.

Readdle is a company that is committed to deliver quality apps so this application is not an exception.

Scanner Pro delivers the following advanced scanner features to users:

1.  Ability to compose multi page documents.

2. All results are industry standard PDF files.

3. Optional 40-bit RC4 level PDF encryption

4.  Image quality enhancement algorithms.

5. Uploading files to MobileMe iDisk and other WebDAV enabled web storages

Like all scanner apps, Scanner Pro allows me to handle any type of document ranging from simple one page letter to multiple pages documents. You can add and remove pages by clicking on the edit button and tapping on the selected page. You can also reorder the pages and even combine pages of different size like A4, and A5 in one document.

The initial startup screen for Scanner Pro shows the functions of each of the icons at the below of the application. Actually, I am impressed by the efforts made by Readdle to make the application user-friendly to the non-IT people.

Some applications don’t even have the explanations for the individual toolbars. They let the user do trial and error on the usage of the function toolbars.

Scanner Pro first allows the user to take a photograph of the scanned document. Usually taking photos depends on the lighting effects of the environment around you. If the lighting is not good, the clarity of the photo is affected. You can retake the photo if you are not satisfied with the clarity of the picture taken. Next, you can adjust the brightness and contrast of the words so it is more clear. I am using iPhone 2G and it is 2 mega pixels. Perhaps, those people who uses iPhone 3GS will have better results. Sometimes, when you adjusting the quality of the photographs, the application will crash. I suspect this is due to low memory on my iPhone. I hope Readdle can improve on this feature next time.

After doing the necessary actions, you can save the document as a different filename as per your wish. All scanned documents are saved as PDF files that can be easily shared as PDF files and read on any computer and other mobile phones. You can also protect your document with a password with Scanner Pro. Only people who know the password will be able to open the document. I have tested the password feature on iPhone safari browser but it is showing me a blank page. But on my computer, it will prompt me for the password before I open the PDF file. I have feedback this issue to the Readdle team so hopefully in the next update, they will fix this bug.

There are some other options that you can play around under the settings page. This page allows you to configure the WebDAV server settings. You need to key in the WebDAV urls and your credentials for the WebDAV provider. I am using Box.net with free 1 gig storage space. You can use Apple MobileMe iDisk or Humyo if you got accounts with them. For other WebDAV server, please refer to my previous link here. The WebDAV function is fast, reliable and easy to use. It is basically suitable for people who like to share files with their friend or colleagues while on the move.

You can set grayscale by default if you are scanning black and white documents using Scanner Pro. If you notice at the bottom of the screen, there is an IP Address – http://192.168.0.5:8080. This is the IP Address of the sharing folder of Scanner Pro on your iPhone. You can type this address on any Mac OS X, Windows XP or Window Vista computer and connect to your iPhone and transfer the scanned PDF Files from iPhone. No additional software is required to make it work.

I tested sending scanned documents to my email by tapping the send button. Even you are disconnected from the Internet, the documents will be send the next time, you connect to the Internet. Scanner Pro just tells me the document is sent even when I am offline but I tested it does send the documents to my email when I set my Wi-Fi to on. I can preview the documents with the built-in PDF viewer exactly the same as anyone who is reading the document. Thus, I am able to know how the document look like before sending the document to the other party.

I have compared the features with Scanner Pro and other similar products and tabulated the below differences between them. From the table, Scanner Pro is a clear winner.

Functionality: 4.8 /5
Ease of Use: 4.8 /5
Value for Money: 5 / 5
Type of users Catered for: Individuals and Small Business customers.
Overall: 4.8 /5

Check out Scanner Pro on iTunes now for $6.99!

	Scanner Pro	JotNot	DocScanner
Work with docs
Saves documents as PDF files	Yes	Yes	Yes
Support multipage documents	Yes	No	Yes
Allows document management on iPhone	Yes	No	Yes
Has document preview	Yes	No	Yes
Can reorder document pages	Yes	No	No
Creates password protected PDF files	Yes	No	No
Supports documents in landscape orientation	Yes	No	No
Sharing features
Emails documents as attachments	Yes	Yes	Yes
Provides access to PDFs from a computer	Yes	Partially	No
Uploads documents to MobileMe iDisk or other WebDAV storage	Yes	No	Partially
Image processing
Imports images from the Photo Library	Yes	Yes	Yes
Has automatic edge detection	Yes	Yes	Yes
Has automatic perspective correction	Yes	Yes	Yes
Has automatic light & contrast correction	Yes	Yes	Yes
Does all image processing on the iPhone, e.g. offline	Yes	Yes	Yes
Allows manual light & contrast correction	Yes	No	Yes
Supports paper sizing: Letter, Legal, or A4	Yes	Yes	Yes
Price
Regular	$6.99	$4.99	$9.99
Current	$6.99	$2.99	$8.99

Cannons Promo Codes Contest “Closed”

I have got four promo codes for this game.

All you have to do is to read the review and spot what features of the game can be further improved. You can also add in what you will like the developer to add for future updates of the game. Your entry will qualify you for a chance to win one promo code of this game to play with your friends.

As usual, only the best entries win! Before you participate in the contest, please read the rules and regulations that you can’t trade the promo code away. The contest is for people who really wants to play the game and my site does not welcome promo code traders.

Cannons Game Review

Cannons is a pipe completion game that is in similar genre with CXI Gaming’s Pirate Attack II  but the Readdle guys have gone further in adding more flavor to the pipe game itself to surpass standards created by CXI Gaming’s Pirate Attack II.

You can play this game in Story or Quick Play game modes. In Story mode, you get to conquer different ships on the seas by completing the fuses and fire cannons at them. Of course, there are hidden treasures in the seas, waiting for discovery. You have to find these treasures before your enemy finds them before you do.

In Quick Play game mode, you can play in Arcade, Classic or Strategy game modes. In the Arcade quick play mode, the fuses drop automatically one by one like in a Tetris game. Your job is to mix and match the fuses so that the cannons can be fired off. In the Classic quick play mode, all the fuses are arranged in a messy manner. You can align them such that they match so the fuses will burn and the new fuses come toppling down from above. This Classic game mode also sounds like a Tetris game mode isn’t it?

This game is definitely worth your money as each game mode can be played in Easy, Normal and Hard difficulty levels. There are Story, Quick Play Arcade, Quick Play Classic and Quick Play Strategy game modes altogether. So total, there are 12 game modes in this game alone for a price of $2.99.

The basic game play is to tap and rotate the fuses so that they can connect and light up the fuses to fire the cannons. There is a required number of cannons to shoot before the time runs out on you. You also have to prevent the fuses from filling up the screen or else it is game over for you. If you complete many combos in the game, you can actually earns coins to upgrade your cannons later.

In Strategy game mode, you only have a limited number of matches to light the fuses. This allows the gamer to plan his or her move carefully so as to not waste the matches to light the fuses. Once you light the fuses using the last match, if you can’t burn the remaining fuses, you will lose the game. Thus, you have to choose to light the fuses that covers a large area with each match in order to win!

One thing to note in this game when you initially start the game in an area without wireless internet, it is best to disable “the submit scores online” by tapping on the checkbox. If you do not do this, you are unable to proceed with the game.

You can select your character during the start of the game. The game music is splendid in the sense that it influence people to be excited and hold them in suspense while playing the game.

You can submit your scores online when you are near a wireless hot spot to let your friends know where you fare in the game.

If you love Tetris or Pipe Mania, this game can actually satisfy your needs. You can also share this game with your friends by allowing them to create different character profiles on your iPhone or iPod Touch. This way, you can challenge them in an indirect manner as this game currently does not support Wi-Fi or Bluetooth gaming.

Below is a video of the actual game play on Cannons.

Graphics: 4.6 /5
Sound/Music: 4.7 /5
Fun: 4.7 /5
Addictiveness: 4.7 /5
Value for money: 4.8 /5
Overall: 4.7 /5

Check out Cannons on iTunes for $2.99 only!

AniGif creates, emails and tweets animated photos on the iPhone

Odessa, Ukraine – August 5, 2009 – Today Readdle announces the release of AniGif, iPhone application that lets people create animated images from their photos and send anywhere in the world. AniGif uses photos from the iPhone camera to make fun and inspiring animations to watch on the iPhone, send by email and even post to Twitter. AniGif is available exclusively on the Apple App Store at USD $1.99.

“Working with AniGif is as simple as 1,2,3. Just take a set of pictures with the iPhone camera and instantly get cool animated image. Then show it to your friends, send by email or post to Twitter,” said Alexander Tyagulsky, Readdle CMO. “You can even create short stop motion movies with AniGif and easily share them with the world.”

AniGif sends animations as email messages with animated GIFs attached to the email. Anyone with modern email client could view that message on a phone, laptop or computer. Internet connection is the only requirement for the process, no MMS, SMS or other fee based service is involved.

Pricing and Availability:
AniGif is available for the special price of $1.99 (USD) exclusively on the App Store. iPhone OS 3.0 or later required to run AniGif.

Check out AniGif on iTunes now for $1.99.

PDF Expert App Review

PDF Expert is another application created by Readdle.com to aid people for reading acrobat pdf files on the go for professionals or students. Basically, PDF expert uses WebDAV protocol to share its data with other computers by the Wi-Fi Network. Once you turn on the WiFi network Drive option, you can turn PDF Expert into a portable flash drive.

Most operating systems like Windows XP, Vista and Mac OS X have the ability to mount WebDAV resource as a shared network drive.

To connect to your iPhone or iPod Touch and read the documents stored under PDF Expert, you just have to type http://192.168.0.X:8080 in your web browser. The X is the number for the computer assigned by the router to your iPhone or iPod Touch. You can check the IP Address under Wi-Fi Networks on your idevice. The 8080 is the port which PDF Expert uses for sharing the documents.

In Windows XP, you need to add a new Network Place using the Network Place Wizard which can be found under “My Network Places” on your computer. Type “http://” and PDF Expert IP address and port for Internet or network address prompted by the Network Place Wizard.

On Vista, you need to map the network drive as the http PDF Expert web address. You have to make sure Reconnect at login box is unchecked as your computer will have a different IP address next time you are online as it is assigned randomly by your router if you are using the DNS feature compared to static IP Address. If you have enabled password protection for PDF Expert, Vista will prompt you for the username and password which you have configured in PDF Expert.

On Mac OS X, you have to click the Finder icon and choose “Connect to Server” in the Go menu. After that, type the PDF Expert IP address with “http://” and click the “Connect” button.

The three main scenarios you can do with PDF Expert is read documents on the go, email files directly from the app or manage files stored inside the PDF Expert. One important thing to note is that if you delete the app from your iPhone, all your documents stored in PDF Expert will be gone too. If you want to prevent that disaster from happening, it is better to store your files on Readdle Storage which gives you 512 megs of online storage when you register a new account with readdle.com.

Using PDF Expert, you can zip up your files or folders before you email them out. You can also rename or delete the files under your documents. Do take note that once you delete a folder, the rest of the files and subfolders will be deleted as well.

You can create new folders within the application to categorize the files you need to store under PDF Expert. For example, you can label the folders as private, work or school to further manage your documents.

There are a couple of features useful in PDF expert. For example, you can do a fast scrolling through the pages in large documents. You just need to push the slider bar forward to skip to the later pages of your PDF document. You can also do copy and paste functions within the document itself.

You can find words within the document using the find function but sometimes this function depends on the clarity of the words within the document to be able to do a fruitful search. This happens when the document is not scanned clearly. While doing your reading, you can also add bookmarks so you can return to where you stop reading next time.

Another notable feature about PDF expert is that you can lock to portrait mode when you read your documents. This is to prevent the iPhone accelerometer to adjust it to landscape mode when you accidentally tilt your device.

If you want your Device Photos to appear in PDF expert so that you can email to your friends, you just need to turn this option on under General settings. You can also turn on passkey lock for PDF expert to prevent other people from prying into your private documents in the application itself. However, there is no way to recover your files if you forget your passkey. Do proceed with caution if you set this security option.

PDF Expert currently supports following document formats for viewing:

• Microsoft Office: Word, Excel, Powerpoint (.doc/.docx, .xls/.xlsx, .ppt/.pptx)
• Apple iWorks including iWorks ‘09: Pages, Numbers, Keynote (.pages,
.keynote, .numbers).
• Portable document format (.PDF)
• Web pages (.html, .htm)
• Rich text documents (.rtf, rtfdnew)
• Text files (.txt)
• Fiction book (.fb2)
• Plucker e-books (.pdb)
• Images (.jpeg, .jpg, .gif, .png. .tiff)
• NEWMedia formats (mp3, mp4, 3gp, mov, mpv)

Overall, I feel the current release of PDF Expert does have improved performance over the refresh of the document even when I am opening a 73 megabytes file to read. It takes about 6 seconds to have the page to refresh when you navigating between different pages on a big document. What I prefer is to have a summary of the search results rather than words being highlighted in the find word function. In this way, I can see the paragraph before I navigate to the actual pages so I can know whether it is the page I want to find in the document.

For a price of $4.99, I will think it is reasonably priced for such comprehensive functions. But certainly, having some improvements over its features will definitely draw more supporters to this application.

Functionality: 4.7 /5
Ease of Use: 4.8 /5
Value for Money: 4.8 / 5
Type of users Catered for: Mobile Users
Overall: 4.8/5

Check out PDF Expert on iTunes App Store for $4.99.