Qipit to focus on smart phone applications and enterprise offering – Free online service discontinued
October 21st, 2009As the first ever mobile copy service, Qipit was launched in September of 2006 on the foundation of its predecessor and beta version, Click2Scan. Click2Scan was first introduced in early 2005 at the 3GSM World Congress, premiering what has since become a clear and growing market.
For the last three years, users of the Qipit service enjoyed the highest quality mobile scanning service at no charge, from any camera phone. During this time, we thoroughly enjoyed serving the community that developed around the service. Since launching the mobile copy industry, we have been driven by a single, obsessive quest: to provide the best quality, easiest to use service for making copies of documents and other types of printed or written information while outside the office.
The evolution of the mobile phone industry at large has met our expectations. Handsets have grown (much) more powerful, and the cameras have steadily improved their vision, to a point where a significant portion of the new phones shipped now feature autofocus and at least 2 megapixels in resolution. This has led us to explore alternatives models for delivering the best Qipit value to our users:
Recently, we have been working closely with enterprises to provide them with a mobile copy solution that match their needs for a robust service that is easy to integrate in their I.T. solutions and provides best-of-class copies to support their key business processes. This is necessarily very different from the existing qipit.com free service, and has proven an exiting opportunity for the technology.
Back in September of this year, we launched our first iPhone application, Qipit White. This was the first step towards our new strategy. Qipit White, does all of the processing on the handset instead of sending images to the Qipit server for processing. In our opinion, this provides a much better user experience, reducing processing time down to 5-10 seconds, from at least one minute when using a server based solution. In addition, Qipit White features improved connectivity to other services and tools.
Qipit White is positioned as a white board capture tool (OK, and flipcharts, too). This way, iPhone users can use it regardless of their generation of iPhone device (only the iPhone 3GS has an autofocus; close-up pictures of documents shot with the original iPhone or with the 3G model will be blurred (due to out-of-focus) and therefore will provide poor quality copies of documents). We will soon follow up with new applications for document copy, on the iPhone followed by the other popular smart phone platforms.
What does this mean for the Qipit online service and its users?
Starting today (October 21, 2009), the Qipit online service at www.qipit.com no longer accepts new user registrations.
Our existing users will be able to use the service as normal until November 9, 2009, at which time the ability to create new qipit copies (whether using web upload, Facebook applications, Shozu, copy@qipit.com, or color@qipit.com) and to share (by sending faxes and emails) will be discontinued.
On December 2, 2009, the service will be taken offline.
We encourage users to download to your computer all of the information you would like to keep, prior to this date. You can do this by clicking on “Veiw PDF” in the MY Documents section of the website then saving the PDF, or by simply emailing a copy to yourself using the “Email It” function.
After the shutdown, all users copies stored on our servers will not be accessible any more.
To our users, I want to say thank you for helping us build this service. We have learned much on this journey together. We will take the lessons learned from the past three years, to create even more useful smart phone applications for you.
To all of the bloggers, vloggers , podcasters, tweeters, reporters, radio show hosts, book and magazine authors, who took the time to spread the word about our service, I want to extend a heart felt thank you. There is no greater honor than having your service touted by others on TV in books, blogs, newspapers, magazines, videos and radio shows. Receiving an alert that Qipit was featured in the some form of media is always a thrill and an honor. We could not have grown this service without your help. We are hopeful; you will find our smart phone applications useful and you will continue your support of Qipit.
As always, we welcome your thoughts and comments.
Thanks,
~ Conrad
October 25th, 2009 at 4:24 am
Wow… way to shaft the users who plugged your service.
October 25th, 2009 at 6:30 am
I certainly want to wish your company great success in your new direction.
I must add that I am somewhat saddened by the news. I never used the service EXTENSIVELY, I have used it and due to the excellent process and result, it quickly became an important part of my mobile toolkit. Perhaps I should blame myself for the current situation because I did not use the excellent services every week for something and thus generate a greater volume for the WM market segment.
As a not-for-profit leader, I often take part in meetings with whiteboard/big-white-sheet activities. Your existing product and service was my insurance that I could take the picture with my Windows Mobile phone and thus obtain a PDF of the materials for documentation.
Your specific focus on the Apple IPhone with no mention of the many users of Windows Mobile phone causes me GREAT concern. The mention of “Other Smartphones” does not give me much hope that the many business users who use the Windows Mobile products using WM 6.0 - 6.1 - 6.5 - and soon 7.0 will be supported.
PLEASE commit to service for us as well.
Thanks for the notice and for the opportunity to use the services of Qipit while we could.
Sincerely,
Jim
October 25th, 2009 at 7:56 am
I think it’s a pity. You should have added your new smart phone apps and enterprise offering (which will get you the necessary funds) but I’m sorry to hear you will discontinue the current service.
Yours was a unique application, there was no other on the web which could offer the same results.
I own no smart phone, and probably never will, so I might never see what your new policy has in store. As a matter of fact I am one of those people who used Qipit to enhance camera pics, not phone pics.
Anyway, thanks for the excellent service you offered. Best luck in this new stage.
Rolando Boldt
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October 25th, 2009 at 8:08 am
i am shocked and saddened by your decision. I assume as with everything this is driven by money or lack thereof. i will miss this service greatly.
October 25th, 2009 at 10:02 am
Dear qipit team,
It was just recently that I started using your service with my iPhone 3GS. Its results have been awesome everytime I have used it. Each time I have been impressed by your great service.
My focus has been on quickly “scanning” one or two pages of a text document using qipit. I would highly appreciate if you could still provide this functionality with the upcoming smartphone applications. Qipit White does not really serve this purpose if I am correct.
In addition, maybe you could consider integrating OCR for document scans.
Good luck for you new products and all the best!
Thank you very much for letting me use qipit til now!
October 25th, 2009 at 1:48 pm
Not everyone has/wants a iphone / smartphone any alternative for those users besides loss of service?
October 25th, 2009 at 1:49 pm
congrats on your growth and appreciate you have to move on, but this really blows chunks. all the consultants like me who do endless whiteboard sessions and have yet to give into apple are essentially hosed. any recommendation on alternatives out there?
October 26th, 2009 at 5:55 pm
It is with great disappointment that I have received notice that you are discontinuing your online service. The primary application that I have used qipit for is the real time capture of business receipts allowing for the creation “on the fly” of PDF copies of all travel receipts. This has been so successful that we planned to roll this out to all of our employees as the preferred method to capture travel receipts for further processing to expense reports.
While I have an iPhone, (and have not tried the new iPhone White app) I believed that your online application was the “killer application” in this area. In fact, if it were a subscription service, I would subscribe. I hope that you will explore this option - continue your free service as a trial and then require a conversion after thirty days.
There are other online services that provide a similar service, but yours is clearly the technology leader - i.e. when I take a picture of a receipt (or document or whiteboard), I get the high quality PDF that I need.
In summary, if you convert this to a subscription service, I will subscribe. Thanks for taking my input - you have a GREAT technology and service PLEASE ALLOW CONTINUED ACCESS!!!!
Regards,
Kelley Dillenberger
October 26th, 2009 at 6:58 pm
There will be a version of Qipit White available soon for Android, with other operating systems to follow.
The next update for Qipit White (Version 2.0) will have more sharing features such as integration with Evernote, TwitPic (So you can tweet a whiteboard) and facebook. This has already been submitted to Apple, so look for it soon!
As for the ability to fax and scan documents, that will be part of a new application that is currently in the works. Of course, it will need the smartphone camera to have auto-focus.
Thanks for all of the comments so far.
November 5th, 2009 at 12:49 am
Will you have an app for the Blackberry phones ? Verizon Wireless? If so what’s the cost?
November 5th, 2009 at 6:57 pm
Thanks to everyone who has commented and emailed to say farewell to the Qipit online service. We know some of you are disappointed with this change, and we read that as an endorsement of the value that Qipit has delivered to our users since September of 2006.
Our experience of providing the Qipit online service lead us to understand that providing applications on the latest smartphone platforms is a win-win proposition: You, the Qipit user, get a far superior user experience. And we get a way to make a living while serving you with the best mobile document scanning technology available today. As some of you have pointed out, this was obviously difficult to achieve while running a free of charge, advertising-free service.
Of course, we will not be successful without you, our users. That’s why we are working on several other Qipit applications (beyond Qipit White for the iPhone) for Android, Windows Mobile, and Symbian smart phones so that as many as possible will be able to continue to enjoy the value of the Qipit technologies.
We trust that, if you enjoyed using qipit.com, you will support us by using one of the new Qipit applications and spreading the word around. Watch for more news on these new applications on this blog.
November 8th, 2009 at 7:54 am
I read the following with great interest…”we are working on several other Qipit applications (beyond Qipit White for the iPhone) for Android, ******Windows Mobile******, and Symbian smart phones”.
I have also read the comments already placed upon this listing from your users.
Your company has developed a wonderful technology which is well thought of by those of us who have used it.
Thanks for giving those business phone users, even small not for profit organization workers such as myself, hope for the future in the use of our Windows Mobile and other non Iphone devices. Business process workers would look at your services as an essential element of their process toolkit. Many were not aware of the availability of the product unfortunately.
It sounds like many amateur digital photographers also used your service. This warms my heart as a naturalist who want more people to take advantage of the out of doors and the relaxation and recreation opportunities which come from such visitation.
We NEED your services. Please do not forget about us. We can help to make your company financially successful if you will prioritize the deployment of services which we can utilize.
Time will not be a friend as you begin this process. Many of us must find alternatives after you “pull the plug” on the old server application so very soon.
Again, thanks for the past services and my wish is for success to your company. I just want to continue being your user and your supporter as a Windows Mobile enthusiast.
I only wish that I had used Qipit every day from my Windows Mobile smart phone.
A Qipit Family User,
Jim
November 11th, 2009 at 4:19 am
Basically, this approach was taken by comombo a few years ago when they produced a j2me app for local processing of pictures. I had a SonyEricsson k800 and comombo was great even with that feature phone. I really hope you make a symbian application very soon!
November 18th, 2009 at 9:35 am
I just found your service and I find out it’s gone. Perhaps you should take down the server application instructions. I tried it with my non-smart camera phone and when nothing happened, I found this article.
November 18th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
@Josh - Sorry you found Qipit after we discontinued the online service. We are in the process of updating our website to reflect the changes. This is planned after we close the online service. In the meantime, our current users can still log into their accounts to download their qipits.
November 22nd, 2009 at 10:20 am
We are loosing wonderful servise of quipit
November 30th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
This is quite sad. I used this site a lot, and I cannot afford to get a smartphone. I’m really sad to see you guys go. And you really shouldn’t take it as an endorsement of your service that pretty much all of the previous commentors have said it’s a bad idea to quit. You should take it as a loss of users.
December 2nd, 2009 at 12:58 pm
kindly provide approximate timeline on windows mobile based applications. Please consider multipage document creation on the spot to avoid looking at hundreds of other images before incorporating them into multipage document. ease of use is make it or break it. Do not forget windows mobile supports printing of PDF files as well…yet another opportunity to close the gap between capture and recreation of documents. Many savvy business users utilize the advanced capabilities of Non I-phone based mobile operating systems and mostly Windows Mobile. Please speed up your development if possible. Past services of yours were remarkable and I hope they continue to be in the future. Money will follow.. Thank You. Oggi.