I had my first experience with QR codes on the weekend. QR codes are really cool - they make using your phone a whole lot easier. Point your phone at a little square like this one and you can easily make a call, visit a web site, download music and so on, depending on what’s encoded in the picture. The one to the right will take you to the Gleemy mobile downloads page.
I recommend you install a QR reader (unless your phone ships with one.)
This Nokia site lists a few reader applications - I tried to install each one though I was only able to test Kaywa reader and I-nigma reader with the handsets I have. Your mileage may vary depending on your handset.
I tried Kaywa reader and I-nigma reader on both S40 and S60 handsets. They work much the same, they only differ in that Kaywa reader shows an interstitial page with “Selected KAYWA mobile content” before taking you to your destination.
A significant difference between the S40 and S60 versions of both readers is that you only need to wave the phone in front of the code on an S60 (Symbian) device. On an S40 (Java) device you need to more carefully frame the code with the phone’s camera, then press a button and wait a few seconds for the picture to be decoded.
Why the difference?
Both Java applications are unsigned; therefore they have restricted access to features like acquiring pictures with the camera. The phone asks your permission by showing a prompt before passing the picture to the application.
Java applications execute much more slowly than native Symbian applications. With Java, I can imagine the camera API returns a JPG, the Java application retrieves the pixel data (the JPG data is decoded) then the application iterates multiple times over the array of pixels to decode the QR code. Array accesses are slow in Java as the virtual machine checks each access for out of bounds conditions.
Don’t let that deter you, if you haven’t already go ahead and install a reader.
Yeah, QR codes are all over the place in Japan - including some on massive billboards
QR codes have also recently been approved for mobile airline ticketing (http://www.iata.org/pressroom/pr/2007-11-10-01.htm). The idea is that you get your ticket sent to your phone as a QR (or other approved) code, and you show the code on your phone screen to a scanner at the airport.
I had no idea mobile airline ticketing was so far along:
“The industry has set a deadline of the end of 2010 to implement 100% bar coded boarding passes (BCBP). Upon full implementation, BCBP will save the industry over US$500 million annually.”
And apparently Google has recently adopted QR codes as well : http://www.google.com/adwords/printads/ads/barcode/
I hope it’s successful for Google and consumers alike.
I admit, when I first heard the general concept of QR codes, I didn’t get it. If you’re trying to reach people, why rely on your audience being physically near something, that’s well, physical too? How inefficient is that?
After actually scanning a few codes, I realised it’s about the consumer, not the publisher/advertiser. If you’re near something interesting, great, you can scan it and keep interacting. (If not, you won’t really mind since you didn’t know about it.)