Office Lens Now Available for iPhone, Android Version in Preview

Office Lens is a great tool. It allows you to use your smartphone camera like a scanner. Take a photo of a receipt, business card, whiteboard – anything really – and Office Lens gives you tools to adjust the image. You can edit, crop, enhance, and align. And, when you're done, you can save the finished product to OneNote.

I use Office Lens constantly for gathering receipts for expenses. I usually collect all the receipts from a trip and shove them into the front pocket of my carry-on. But, before I do that, I use Office Lens to capture each one. Our expense system here at Penton accepts a wide range of attachment formats, so when I sit down to do the dreaded expense report, the receipts are ready to attach. Of course, I verify what I have in OneNote with my stack of paper receipts when I return from a trip, but they are only there as a "just in case" measure. Before Office Lens and OneNote, I'd toss them into a file folder and hang on to them. Now, I just toss them in the waste basket when I return. It's liberating, really.

Today Microsoft has announced that Office Lens is available for both iPhone and Android phones. Prior to today, it was only available for Windows Phone, and today's release shows more of Microsoft's intent to exist on all popular platforms.

The iPhone version is spit-and-polished and ready for download from iTunes today: Office Lens for iPhone

The Android version is released in preview and available for download from the Google+ Android Preview Community. To get it, you must be running Jelly Bean (4.1) and above, and you have to actually Join the community. After that you must ask to become a tester and then the download will be available to you.