At MPOW there is now a group on Yammer for discussing and sharing ideas about QR codes in education. The comments pushed me to try some other QR code apps and services. Previously I had used Upcode on the iPhone and while it worked in most cases, I sometimes had to ‘scan’ a code a few times before it could decode it. I did not have any success with the codes on my Chinese train tickets, but the printing on those was not ideal.
In May 2009 I wrote about SplashURL and its option to generate both a short URL and a QR code for that URL. More recently Google and Bitly have introduced similar functionality.
My colleagues mentioned some alternative apps for the iPhone, including ones that not only decoded, but created QR codes so I figured it was time to try something new.
QuiQR and Optiscan were mentioned. For some perverse reason I ignored both of those at first and some how found MyQR (a web based generator) as a starting point for this exploration.
myQR
myQR is an online service for generating codes. The special sauce is the analytics on usage of the code.
And if colour is desired for branding or aesthetics a small selection of options is available.
Currently offers codes for:
- URLs
- contact cards
- text (UPDATE: the text is on a web page which has to be loaded. This is to support usage tracking I’m assuming)
- map/locations
myQR site recommended an iPhone app QR Scanner (free) but it was not supported on my older model. So, then I decided to give QuiQR a trial.
QuiQR
QuiQR iPhone app scans codes and creates QR codes for:
- URLs
- phone numbers
- text (UPDATE – text appears on the phone without requiring a web page to load)
- contact details
- SMS
ZXing (Zebra Crossing)
Web-based code generator ZXing Project offers a wider range of options.
- events
- wifi networks
- contacts
- URLs
- email addresses
- locations
- phone numbers
- SMS
- text
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