Quick App- CardStar

Posted on 06 August 2009 by


Some apps deserve long, full reviews.

Others are best reviewed in video.

Others still are neat little gems but don’t take a whole lot to explain. That’s the idea behind…

Quick Apps- Quick Looks At Apps That Are Worth A Look

Today’s Quick App- CardStar

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I try to keep as little in my wallet as possible. My license, a few credit cards, my AAA card and that’s about it. It makes my wallet light and thin but it also means that all those specialty cards that build points or get discounts are never with me when I go shopping. That’s no longer the case thanks to CardStar, a small, free app that recreates the bar codes for all your store cards right on your iPhone.  

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When you start the app you are greeted by all your store cards. If it is the first time using the app the screen will be blank. Tap the “+” to add a new card.

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On the lower left you can choose basic or advanced mode. Basic mode is simple and quick and, thanks to a fairly large database of stores, is likely all you need. Advanced comes into play when a store isn’t in the database.

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Tapping on “merchant” brings you to a list of categories. If you aren’t sure which category your store is in you can choose the “All Merchants” tab and see all of the stores in the database. It just means you’ll have to scroll more.

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Selecting the type of store brings up a list of known options. As you can see the “iggees” are here but it isn’t an extensive list. If yours isn’t there you can always go to the advanced mode.

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From there it is as simple as adding your card number.

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The app does the rest… converting the number into the barcode that the store clerk would have scanned when you handed them the card… only now they’ll scan your iPhone.

How neat is that??? Best of all the app is FREE! Grab it here.

This post was written by:

- who has written 2794 posts on Gear Diary.

Having a father who was heavily involved in early laser and fiber-optical research, Dan grew up surrounded by technology and gadgets. Dan’s father brought home one of the very first video games when he was young and Dan remembers seeing a “pre-release” touchtone phone. (When he asked his father what the “#” and “*” buttons were his dad said, “Some day, far in the future, we’ll have some use for them.”) Technology seemed to be in Dan’s blood but at some point he took a different path and ended up in the clergy. His passion for technology and gadgets never left him. +Dan Cohen

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  • http://www.s-consult.com/index.php Wayne Schulz

    I wonder whether there are restrictions on the types of stores that will allow this? I sure would like to take all the tags dangling off my keychain and put them into here!

  • http://www.centresource.com chayner

    I love this app, and have put many of my cards in it. The only problem that I’ve run into is that almost every scanner that has tried to read the barcode is light-based, and therefore is unable to read the code (due to the reflective screen). Don’t know if perhaps adding a matte screen protector would help with this.

  • victore

    i’ve dutifully added all of my loyalty cards into cardstar, but like chayner, i have yet to have it work. i’ve tried best buy, albertsons, ralphs, you name it. still no love. for now, it remains a database of cards, but in the meantime, i used “justoneclubcard.com” to create a paper based card that scans every time.