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Ever since I launched my first wine mobile app last year, my readers have asked me if their smartphones could scan a bar code or label and voila, there’s all the information on the wine? <\/p>\n
It’s a lovely fantasy that both wine lovers and wine app developers share (what we used to call vapour-ware in the high-tech biz mostly used for demo and PR purposes). It’s just not a reality. <\/p>\n
However, I owe my readers a quick overview of the options, especially with the launch of my new mobile app<\/a> a few weeks ago. As a double geek (wine and high tech), I love following the latest technology trends:<\/p>\n 1. UPC Bar Codes: <\/strong>scan the UPC bar code (shown above) to retrieve the info on the wine. Challenges: <\/p>\n – no standards body for barcodes for wine so there are various types of codes<\/p>\n – wineries re-use barcodes for different vintages which creates redundancy and the inability to pinpoint wine info quickly<\/p>\n – thousands of wines, especially high-end ones, don’t use barcodes for aesthetic reasons<\/p>\n – barcode scanning accuracy technology needs to improve dramatically with issues related to pixel comparison and optical character recognition (OCR)<\/p>\n 2. 2D Bar Codes:<\/strong> scan the 2D bar code (shown above) to retrieve the info on the wine. Challenges: <\/p>\n – all of the issues noted above for UPC codes<\/p>\n – there’s virtually no penetration for 2D codes in the wine market: only one or two wineries use it in Ontario liquor stores, fewer than 500 in all of the US out of more than 250,000 new wine SKUs produced every year<\/p>\n – unlike UPC codes, there’s no central database, so the process of associating info with the 2D code is manual, time-consuming and expensive<\/p>\n – there’s no integrated 2D bar code wine app on the market, which necessitates multiple steps and hassle fo the consumer: users must download a separate 2D scan app, then sign up for a wine review service, then scan the codes to see if the data matches between the two<\/p>\n – the information gets out of date quickly<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 3. Label Readers:<\/strong> snap a photo of the label to retrieve the info on a wine. Challenges:<\/p>\n – significant issues with reader accuracy due to the lighting, reflection, angles and curvature of wine labels on a bottle<\/p>\n – lack of universality: there’s no central database of quality wine label images to compare to for the search<\/p>\n 4. Google Goggles:<\/strong> a visual search app on Android that takes a picture to retrieve the wine info. Challenges:<\/p>\n – only for the Android (not iPhone, BB or other smartphones)<\/p>\n – scan accuracy still needs to improve dramatically The other related question I get is what’s the difference between a mobile app and a mobile version <\/strong>of a web site? <\/p>\n A mobile app is an application that is written\/coded for a particular smartphone platform, such as iPhone and BlackBerry. It’s downloadable through their respective stores, such as Apple’s iTunes and BlackBerry’s App World. Both my first and second mobile apps<\/a> are native apps written for these platforms. <\/p>\n A mobilized version of a web site is simply a skinnied down version of a web-site so that it fits a little better on a smartphone screen. However, it has none of the navigation controls and other features of a native mobile app, nor does it reach the large audience of mobile app lovers through the app stores. <\/p>\n![\"\"](\"\/html\/uploads\/image\/2Dbarcode.png\")
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