[alienman]

Could a barcode scanner of any store detect a picture of a barcode saved in the blackberry?

For example, say I could download an image of a barcode from a coupon I found online, into my phone, and it was a decent-sized and very clear image. Would a retail scanner be able to read it?

[David.Burke]

It should be possible. There are several iPhone apps that offer that functionality. You should do a search for a similar BB product. **Update: I couldn't find anything for the BB after a brief search. Most of the iApps seem to generate a barcode from inputing a membership card number, and they claim to work best with handheld scanners with the screen at maximum brightness. I don't know about stores accepting a photo of a coupon though, they might want you to hand over the BB for remittance.

[dankarlinski]

Wirelessly posted (My Bold)

It will work. I have done it before when using coupons from cellfire.

However, many retailers want a hard copy coupon so they get reimbursed from the manuf.

[ctuttle]

It does work, and works quite well. Continental Airlines allows you to use your Blackberry as your boarding pass. When you check in online one of the options is to use a mobile device as your boarding pass. When you select this it sends you a link which puts a scanable barcode on your screen.

They scan your Blackberry at security with a hand held scanner, then at the gate they scan your screen again and you board the plane. Works well and I'm guessing that many people do this as nobody acts surprised when you tell them your Blackberry is your boarding pass.

So technology allows this to work, but as others have pointed out the problem with using this for coupons is the store who takes the coupon needs some way to get paid for the coupon, and this seems to be what is holding back this method of coupon redeption, plus the cost of scanners at the point of sale.

[BrianLion]

I used to work in a grocery store and a guy came up in my line and had a barcode on his iphone he wanted me to scan to see if it worked and it didn't. It wouldn't scan on anything.

There could be a number of reasons why it didn't scan but that is just my story so thought I would share.