Weekend QR code round-up winner

Rating: We give full marks to First Great Western

Here at GoMobile News we are regularly in the habit of checking out QR codes we spot in everyday life and this weekend was no exception. So we’re delighted to give full marks to the First Great Western (British) railway company for the use of QR codes to publicise its timetables. The first thing which struck us was the actual size of the QR code. We’d guess at least two inches square. That made it a doddle [easy] to scan in using the much underrated Motorola RAZR Android handset – along with NeoMedia’s NeoReader scanning app. We reckon any handset – even a featurephone, could scan that code it. FGW gets full marks for what happens after consumers scan the code in. It takes them straight to a fully mobile-friendly web site.The first thing you notice when you visit the site is how simple the format is. No fancy graphics plus large and easy to read text. Very mobile friendly.

Visitors to the site are then invited to download a mobile friendly version of the company’s timetables in .pdf (Acrobat) format.

We think that almost all smartphones are able to display a .pdf file. The question is … which app do you use to read the file with?

On our spiffing Motorola RAZR we were offered three choices of apps to read the file with: – Amazon Kindle, Quickoffice or Smart Office Lite.

Interestingly, out of those three we think that the best choice is Amazon Kindle. So if you don’t already have it, download it (for free).

Unlike our rivals, GoMobile News actually does some research. The QR code actually points here http://qrtables.es/gw-tables/. Seems a bit strange as that should be a Spanish site.

Anyway, that address then resolves to www.kadfire.com/webtts//gw-tables which
show you that the company which put the package together for FGW is actually transportation specialist Kadfire.

But Kadfire’s mobile app developer is actually Germany’s Hacon which develops apps for the Apple iPhone; BlackBerry and significantly, Windows Phone 7 (W7 Mango).

The company recently developed a mobile phone app for European football fans called Bilkom.

Incidentally, if you ever need to share a URL as a QR code, we have just discovered that sharing as QR code is part of the Android app QR Droid Plus!