RIP, Microsoft Lens, a easy little app that is getting changed by AI

Typically it’s good to have a easy app that does one factor nicely with out a number of fuss.

Microsoft Lens was that kind of app: a cell doc scanner that turned paper paperwork, enterprise playing cards, receipts, and the rest into simply readable digital recordsdata. Now that app is being discontinued, Microsoft says, because it directs its customers to its Copilot AI chat app as an alternative.

Based on a brand new help doc, Lens will likely be retired from iOS and Android gadgets beginning on September 15, 2025, then faraway from the Apple App Retailer and Google Play on November 15, 2025. Present customers will have the ability to proceed to make use of the app’s scanning capabilities by December 15, 2025. After that date, no new scans will likely be doable, however entry to prior scans will stay within the app so long as it stays on the consumer’s system.

First launched in 2015, Microsoft Lens (then referred to as Workplace Lens) developed from an utility initially designed for Home windows Cellphone gadgets. Whereas its core performance was much like different cell scanning purposes, it didn’t attempt to upcharge customers for sure performance or push them right into a subscription — a rarity in as we speak’s App Retailer.

As an alternative, it carried out its activity of turning any be aware — handwritten or in any other case — doc, receipt, enterprise card, and even whiteboard scribbles into the file format of your selection, like PDF, Phrase, PowerPoint, Excel, or photographs. It additionally provided a wide range of built-in filters to boost the ensuing picture, lighten the doc, flip it right into a sharper black-and-white copy, and extra.

You might then save the file to one in all Microsoft’s apps, different on-line providers, or your digital camera roll. It was easy, and it labored nicely.

The app’s impending shutdown was first noticed by the location Bleeping Laptop, which factors out that customers are being directed to the Microsoft 365 Copilot app, which lacks all of the performance present in Lens. Whereas Copilot can deal with scanning, it doesn’t help saving these scans on to OneNote, Phrase, or PowerPoint, nor does it save enterprise card scans to OneNote. It additionally lacks Lens’ accessibility options like read-out-loud and Immersive Reader integration, the location notes.

Regardless of its age, Lens stays pretty well-liked, having pulled in over 322,000 downloads on the App Retailer and Google Play over the previous 30 days, in line with knowledge from app intelligence supplier Appfigures. Since January 2017, it has been downloaded 92.3 million occasions, the agency’s knowledge exhibits.

Microsoft has not but responded to a request for touch upon its choice to close down Lens.