Readdle's Scanner Pro gets a new look, new OCR searching, and new pricing model

By Oliver Haslam
published

Scanner Pro Text Vision
Scanner Pro Text Vision (Image credit: Readdle)

What you need to know

  • Readdle's Scanner Pro received a big update today, bringing a new look to the popular scanning app.
  • Users can look forward to searching for text within scans and more.
  • Scanner Pro is now a free app with an in-app purchase that unlocks additional features

Readdle has today given Scanner Pro a big update, refreshing the overall look of the app while also adding some new features along the way. There's a new pricing model in play as well, taking the app freemium for the first time.

Alongside the refreshed interface users can now scan images using OCR and then search for text within pages. Documents can also be found based on that text as well, but the biggest addition is the ability to see all on-page text as plain text. That makes it easier than ever to find the text you're looking for and then copy it out as needed.

With Text Vision, Scanner Pro automatically recognizes the texts of your scans in 26 languages, making it searchable and selectable. This lets you easily share a paragraph from a textbook to your note-taking app or copy any names or numbers from scanned receipts.

Scanner Pro Text Search

Scanner Pro Text Search (Image credit: Readdle)

The biggest news however is probably the change to a freemium model. Scanner Pro is now free for everyone, although there are some limitations in place. Everyone will get the following as part of the free app.

  • Best-in-class quality document scanning
  • Ability to freely share documents (albeit with a Scanner Pro watermark)
  • Sync between devices with iCloud

Those who pay the $19.99 per year for Scanner Pro Plus also get:

  • Watermark free scans
  • Text Vision – on-device OCR in 26 languages
  • Full-text search both in Scanner Pro and in shared PDFs
  • Password protection for both the app and any shared PDF
  • Automatic upload to cloud and workflow

Those who already paid for Scanner Pro in the past will get all of the new features included, for free. But anything added in the future will likely fall under the subscription model.

For anyone who's previously bought Scanner Pro, access to the current set of 'Scanner Pro Plus' features will be free, forever. However, some of the new capabilities that we are going to add in the future might require a subscription.

You can download Scanner Pro from the App Store now.

Oliver Haslam
Oliver Haslam
Contributor

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too.

Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.