You may remember a time when you were looking for a real scanner to make a digital copy of a document. The whole process was tedious and time consuming. But today, your iPhone or Android device can get similar results in a matter of seconds. Genius Scan and Adobe Scanner are two of the most popular document scanning apps for iPhone.
Both offer the convenience of converting printed text to digital with just the push of a button. All you need is good lighting and the rest of the work will be done by the respective apps. But as we all know, a perfect app is a myth. And these apps also have a flaw or two.
When it comes to choosing the best between Genius Scan and Adobe Scan, comparisons are inevitable. So, in this post today, we will compare Genius Scan against Adobe Scan and find out which scanner app is best for you.
Without further ado, let’s get straight to the point.
Application Size
Genius Scan is about 52 MB, and Adobe Scan is three times the size of 146 MB. You can download them from the link below.
user interface
Both Adobe Scan and Genius Scan offer a standard home screen view with all scanned documents at the front. Adobe is one step ahead and lets you directly import files and images from the Gallery or Files app.
Genius Scan follows the same routine. It offers recently scanned documents and you can use the camera capture button at the bottom to start scanning the pages.
Unfortunately, none of the apps directly open the camera interface for quickly scanning documents on the go. Again, this has something to do with the way Apple has changed the way you allow apps to access native features like the Camera.
Multi-Page Scan
Most browser apps handle single-page scanning just fine. What about multi-page scanning? Let’s talk about that.
Multi-Page Scan is useful when you need to scan a group of pages together. You also don’t want to lose the order of the pages. If the app has the ability to put all these pages together in a neat PDF file, that’s an added benefit.
After scanning a document, Adobe Scan gives you the option to add more pages (yes, that little icon on the left). All you have to do is take a document from your gallery, scan a new document, and then combine them into a PDF.
Genius Scan handles multi-page scanning like a pro. You can continue document scans and the app will display the number of pages you have scanned for the pdf file. Hit the Done button and the app will create a clean looking pdf file to share.
Landscape Document Scanning
When it comes to scanning documents in landscape mode, Adobe Scan excels at this. It recognizes the document layout almost instantly and captures a snapshot. You don’t need to touch the document; you don’t need to adjust the focus either. It does everything automatically, and it does so in a rather exceptional way.
Speaking of Genius Scan, the app can also recognize documents in landscape mode. However, the recognition isn’t as fast or fast, and you may have to fiddle with the camera position a bit, especially if the background is clear.
Features
Adobe Scan comes with multiple editing tools that work well; you can rotate images, change colors and clean images from unwanted visual artifacts.
All scanned documents go through text recognition after saving. You can then manually copy text from your document scans to the iPhone or iPad clipboard or choose to edit it using a PDF editor.
Adobe Scan also includes additional scanning modes (Whiteboard, Form, and Business Card) that you can easily switch to while scanning, each with its own specific functions. For example, with Business Card, you can scan business cards and easily add details to the Contacts app.
Genius Scan focuses on the security part. You can password-protect a PDF before sharing it, and you can also enable Face ID authentication to keep prying eyes away.
Other add-ons include document editing, OCR (Text Recognition), Business Card scanning, shadow removal, batch scanning and more.
Scan Quality
Let’s talk about distortion and scan quality. Normal white pages won’t break the sweat of Adobe Scan or Genius Scan. The real test begins when you try to use these applications on glossy documents or colored papers.
In some cases, you may notice color bleeding. Or, in worst-case scenarios, the colored background renders the text unrecognizable. The good news is that both Adobe Scan and Genius Scan are free of such issues. In my limited testing time, I found that Adobe did a slightly better job than its competitor.
Storage and Export
Adobe Scan has limited options. This Adobe app gives you less control over managing your documents by storing everything in the Adobe cloud. You cannot edit these documents directly. But luckily there is a Create a copy option where you can share the PDF version via mail or WhatsApp.
Genius Scan is flexible here. You can export scanned documents to Box, Dropbox, Evernote, Expensify, Google Drive, iCloud Drive, OneDrive, and even OneNote.
Go Paperless
Both Adobe Scan and Genius Scan can get the job done for you. I have some observations when choosing between these two. If you live in an Adobe ecosystem and want the best possible product for scanning documents, you can go with Adobe Scan. Genius Scan is more flexible in the sharing part and has better privacy functions.
Next: Looking for CamScanner alternatives for iPhone? Read the post below to find the five best CamScanner alternatives for iPhone.
