Samsung has released a new app named CalliScan in the Galaxy Store. The app converts handwritten notes to text – a feature that is already present in Bixby Vision. It’s not clear why the company released a separate app when the same functionality is already available in Bixby, particularly when it desperately wants customers to use its digital assistant.
One possible reason could be that Bixby Vision is not available on many Galaxy devices and Samsung released this app to cater to those users. Or it may simply be a case of different teams working on these apps, resulting in a feature overlap. Either way, there is no real reason to use CalliScan if your device has Bixby Vision installed.
The app is barebones with a simple camera viewfinder, gallery shortcut, and an option to turn on flash. To use it, just click or import a picture of any handwritten note and the app converts it into text that you can edit or share. Do note that as of now the app supports only English, whereas Bixby Vision supports a few more languages.
CalliScan is available for download in the Galaxy Store if you want to give it a try. When I searched for the app in the store, it wasn’t available in the results under the Popular tab but was present in the More tab. Also, while I was able to download the app to my phone, I couldn’t find it in the store on my Galaxy Tab S3. I am not sure if that’s because it’s a tablet or because it runs Android Oreo.
