Easily keep track of physical items within apps

I am currently in development of an app that keeps track of physical inventory. I am wondering if there is some way that I could possibly use QR Codes or some kind of barcode to scan an item and then have the app recognize the开发者_C百科 item and pull up the info for the item quickly and efficiently. If anyone has a better or more ideas to solve this then please by all means pitch in I am trying to make a better/easier UI for the user.

You have some options here: iPhone 3GS/4, iPod touch -> Linea Barcode Scanner(they have their own SDK) by Infinite Peripherals that has magnetic card reader as well. Apple uses these external Accessory for iPod touches in their stores, if you happen to go to Apple Store you can see these their associates carry them. Very reliable option. Costs about $300 ~ 500 a piece.(Nordstorm, Sears, Kmart use them as well). Verifone sells similar accessory but they aren't as popular as Infinite Peripheral barcode scanners.

Or Reading QR/Barcode using camera is really simple and fast. You can either use ZXing,Zbar sdk to scan barcode and based upon successful scan you can lookup inventory if you have a webservice available. These are free SDK's. Zbar is really fast, I would recommend using Zbar. You have some paid barcode scanners using camera as well like RedLaser.

To manage inventory have your webservices ready, you need to pull information like description, price about item and display in tableview cell. Better UI depends on your requirements and what kind of data you want to show. What you want to do with inventory. So many questions before I can jump to conclusion that this UI looks better.

You can look at shopsavvy api that pulls up item information based on barcode from their database. Paid service though.