How Smartphones Changed the Act of "Reading" - A Scanner in Your Pocket

"Reading" Used to Be a Job for Specialists

Until the early 2000s, reading the black-and-white pattern required a dedicated scanner (tens of thousands of yen). It was specialist equipment owned only by people who used it for work, such as factory workers, logistics staff, and hospital staff. Ordinary people had almost zero opportunities to read the pattern. The pattern was a "technology for business use," something unrelated to consumers' daily lives.

What completely changed this situation was the smartphone. The first iPhone appeared in 2007, and a high-performance camera went into everyone's pocket. Camera + processing power + internet connection. Because these three came together in a single device, it became possible to read the pattern without a dedicated scanner.

The Turning Point of 2017 - The Day the iPhone Added Built-In Support

Reading the pattern with a smartphone had itself been possible since around 2010, but it required installing a dedicated app. The hurdle of "please install an app" is surprisingly high for ordinary consumers. The turning point came in 2017, when Apple built a reading function into the standard camera app in iOS 11.

No app installation needed, just point the camera. This "zero-step" experience expanded the use of the pattern explosively. Restaurant menus, event tickets, detailed product information. The ease of "just holding up the camera" made it possible to use it in every kind of situation. Google also added a similar function to Android's standard camera, and an environment was established in which smartphone users around the world could read the pattern.

Smartphone Penetration and Pattern Usage Rise Together

Global smartphone penetration was about 68% (about 5.5 billion people) as of 2024. This figure is close to "the number of people who can read the pattern" as it is. In developed countries, smartphone penetration has reached 80-90%, and almost everyone is able to read it.

What is interesting is its use in developing countries. People without bank accounts have become able to access financial services for the first time through pattern payment on smartphones. Payment services that combine smartphones and the pattern, such as M-Pesa in Kenya and UPI in India, are changing the economic activity of hundreds of millions of people. Even without dedicated infrastructure (ATMs, card readers), payment is possible as long as you have a smartphone. This ease is accelerating financial inclusion in developing countries.

What Was Impossible in the Age Before Smartphones

In the world before smartphones, the following things were impossible. Scanning the pattern at a restaurant table to view the menu. Getting a coupon from the pattern on a flyer. Registering contact details in an instant from the pattern on a business card. Reading an explanation from the pattern next to an exhibit at a museum. These are all services that only work on the premise that "everyone has a scanner."

Put the other way around, people who do not have a smartphone are excluded from these services. Older people, children, and people who cannot afford a smartphone. The problem of the digital divide (the information gap) has become apparent as the pattern has spread. While we enjoy the convenience, we must not forget that there are people being left behind.

When a Tool Becomes Familiar, New Ways to Use It Emerge

In the era when reading tools belonged to a small number of specialists, the uses for codes were also limited. However, once everyone started carrying a reader in their pocket, the situation changed completely. New uses emerged one after another, such as paying at stores, displaying guidance, adding friends, and showing tickets. This is not because the technology itself changed greatly. Because reading tools became familiar, places to use them that no one had thought of before opened up all at once. It can be said to be a good example of how the spread of a tool broadened people's ideas and gave rise to new habits.

What It Means for Everyone to Be Able to Use It

Everyone can use the same mechanism without special training or dedicated equipment. This is decisively important for a technology to take root widely in society. If reading belonged only to some people, codes would be useful only in limited workplaces. However, because many people, regardless of age or occupation, have come to use them as a matter of course, codes have turned into everyday infrastructure. Only when the condition that everyone can use it is met does a convenient mechanism stop being something special and become a foundation that quietly supports daily life. The value of a technology is completed by being widely used.

Will the Next Form of "Reading" Be Glasses-Type Devices?

What may change "reading" next after the smartphone is AR glasses (glasses-type devices). Technologies such as Apple Vision Pro and Meta's Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses are being developed that automatically read the pattern in front of you just by putting on the glasses, and display information overlaid on your field of view.

A future is in sight in which even the actions of taking out a smartphone and pointing the camera become unnecessary. However, it will probably still take time for AR glasses to spread. There is a mountain of challenges, such as price, battery, and social acceptance (resistance to glasses-type cameras). For the time being, the smartphone will probably continue to play its role as "a scanner in your pocket."