Many apps and sites these days have QR codes.
But it’s not possible to have that code open as well as the camera to scan.
Time to enhance the scan facility to scan an open app.
Come on Apple. It’s not rocket science. You know it makes sense.
iPhone 8 Plus, iOS 16
Thanks.
Maybe my initial point wasn’t clear. I don’t want it to automatically read and open without me authorising it. I get lots of codes on the screen. There are work arounds such as emailing myself and using my phone to scan the code on a different device. But why? That isn’t convenient. Especially on the move.
If an app shows a QR code, I simply want to open it. Without having 3rd party apps or having to email myself. A button perhaps.
If the camera can select an open app on my screen, I could choose what to do.
Something user friendly.
I would absolutely not want a random QR code to automatically perform any action on my iPhone. Not without my first approving it. That would be abused. (There are good and useful cases for QR—providing guest Wi-Fi network credentials is little-known but quite useful, for instance—but like everything else, QR codes also have the potential for abuse. URLs are already used for user tracking, and then also for targeted exploit delivery, for instance.)
If a location-based launch is of interest, and with no need for first launching the camera app, Apple already offers that with the existing RFID capabilities with Core NFC. (ShortCuts can be tied into that, too.) And that stuff can be annoying enough, with no app needed to open the Safari web browser aimed at some webpage.
These are user-supported, public communities and Apple product teams do not participate here.
I can generate a QR code on my Mac that is a URL to the Mad magazine site. I then use Quick Look to open a larger view of that .jpg image and point the camera of my iPhone 15 Pro Max at that QR code. When the camera identifies the QR code, a yellow lozenge with the name madmagazine.com appears at the bottom of the camera screen. Clicking that opens the iOS Safari browser to that URL.
Maybe you need a newer phone or a dedicated scanning app that identifies other forms of QR codes. I use QRBot from the iOS App Store for other codes. My iPhone 13 Pro Max and iPhone 14 Pro Max both behaved identically to my iPhone 15 Pro Max running iOS 15 or 16 with this on-screen QR code URL test.
Adieptf wrote:
Maybe my initial point wasn’t clear. I don’t want it to automatically read and open without me authorising it. I get lots of codes on the screen.
…
If an app shows a QR code, I simply want to open it. Without having 3rd party apps or having to email myself. A button perhaps.
Send a nice note to the people that are emailing or the maintainers of apps that are showing QR codes at all, or at least without having an associated link.
Showing QR codes in an email or app context is… less than optimal.
As for your issue, screenshot the code, open Photos, and “scan” the QR code there.
Cheers.
I read of other apps but I have enough. Built in would be better.
A shame they don’t review these.
Still, since Steve has gone, Apple don’t seem as innovative.
QR Code in app or website
