iPads, MakerEd and More in Education

The iPhone and iPad now include native QR code reading built directly into the camera app, allowing you to scan QR codes quickly using an iOS device and without having to download any third party software.

Over the weekend I shared the news that Google is shuttering the Goo.gl service. In that post I shared a handful of alternatives to Goo.gl. This morning someone emailed me to ask about an alternative to Goo.gl for creating QR codes. My suggestion is to use QR Droid Zapper. With that tool you can create QR codes to direct people to websites, to share contact information, to share files, or to just share a chunk of text. In the following video I demonstrate how to create QR codes with QR Droid Zapper.

QR Codes are the weird looking pixelated squares you sometimes see printed on signs or elsewhere, and while it’s a stretch to say they are widely used (or understood) they are ubiquitous in some areas. While the iPhone does not bundle a method of scanning QR codes by default, if you’re a Google Chrome user then you will find the latest versions of the iPhone Chrome app can scan QR codes for you.


There are a few ways to access the QR code scanning ability of Chrome in iOS. Perhaps the easiest is using Spotlight, but there’s a 3D Touch trick available too.