If your wallet seems  to be overflowing with loyalty cards,  there’s an app that could lighten your load. Well, actually, there are two. Cardstar, which we recently reviewed, allows you to enter in the numbers underneath the bar codes on your cards.  This generates a copy of your bar code on your iPhone, which you can attempt to scan at the store when you check out. If it doesn’t scan, you can have the cashier enter in the bar code numbers manually, instead.

Scanaroo is almost exactly the same. The main differences: Scanaroo costs $.99, while Cardstar is free, and it allows you to take a picture of the back of your loyalty card instead of entering the numbers in. In the App Store, it also has about the same quality of reviews. Many reviewers had trouble getting the bar codes to scan, and some complained that the picture quality was poor, although one reviewer noticed an improvement on the new iPhone 3Gs.

Both apps have a user interface that is intuitive and easy to navigate.  One advantage of Cardstar-if your loyalty card is for a merchant included in their database, their interface gives you access to that merchant’s contact information and to a store locator, so you can find the nearest store.

Which of these two apps is the best? It depends.  It’s hard to beat Cardstar’s price, and the ability to find stores and log in to your online account from your iPhone is a nice touch. However, you do have to be willing to invest a little bit more time to enter in the bar code numbers.  If you don’t need Cardstar’s additional features and don’t mind paying for convenience, Scanaroo might be a better choice.

Which app do you prefer?

Our Rating of Scanaroo

Tags: Lifestyle

Categories:mobile