We live in a world of freelancers, independent contractors, and job seekers. Business cards are swapped at happy hour, at meetings, and out in the field, leading to a clutter of cards crammed into an already too full wallet, where they will stay until they are lost, placed in a rolodex, or piled on a desk. What if there was a way to manage all of those business cards and not lose contacts?
Overview
Business Cards Info (BCI), free in the App Store, has developed an application that allows you to store business cards from contacts, or even create your own. The application stores the cards in a searchable database, allowing you to either access your stored cards, or search for area business cards using various business categories and location. Users are also able to upload an existing business card, create a new business card, search for cards, and even e-mail their business cards to potential clients within the application.
To add a new business card, one must fill out the provided fields, such as first name, last name, e-mail, job title, company, etc. The application then generates a business card based on the provided information, at which point it is stored in the searchable database, and also in the “cards wallet” where you can access it at a later time. When uploading a business card, the field must still be filled in and then a photo of the business card received can be taken and stored with the card data in the Business Card Info (BCI) system.
Business Card Info (BCI) is an excellent application concept, however it appears that it may still be in the early development phase. When filling in the fields to create a business card, it requires you to fill in virtually every field, including a phone field, a mobile field, and even a fax field. Being required to fill in these fields can be a pain, as not everyone still uses a fax machine or has a fax line. What is even more frustrating about these required fields is that while they are required, items such as the fax field, do not even show up on the generated card. Another down side, as stated above, is when you simply want to upload a business card that you were given, you still have to fill out all of the fields, although if a business card is uploaded, users see the uploaded card, rather than a card created within the application.
While the general application’s creation of business cards has some hiccups, the overall design of the generated card leaves much to be desired as well. The card that is created is extremely generic and there are not templates to choose from, all of the business cards generated within the application look exactly the same. In addition to the none existence of templates to choose from, users are not able to format items such as the telephone number, the number keypad comes up, only allowing to enter numerical characters, not parenthesis or dashes. Also, the business card does not display the full name, just the first name, unless the last name is included in the first name field. Furthermore, if you have a long job title, it does not fit the whole title on the card, it will appear as “Group Fitness Instru…” instead of starting a new line to show the complete title.
Verdict [rating: 2.5]
Overall, The Business Card Info (BCI) application is an excellent concept, it just needs a little work. If you are simply looking for a way to remove the clutter from your wallet and organize business card contacts without having to overload your contact list in your phonebook, this application could be helpful to you.
Pros:
- Users are able to add business card contacts without cluttering their contact list
- Allows users to create business cards within the application, even if they don’t have a hard copy of a card
- Search feature allows users to browse business cards in the area
Cons:
- Generic design and layout for all cards, unless you have an image file of an existing business card
- All fields must be filled in, even if you are uploading a card
- Items on the business card are unable to be formatted and long titles will not display fully
Business Card Info (BCI) is available for free in the App Store.
