Apple has a tendency to use the most popular parts, pieces and apps of the jailbreak & developer community to add value to the stock iOS experience. The upcoming iOS 7 does this for example by incorporating a flashlight utility in the new Control Center, instead of the need to acquire a third-party app. This practice was imported from the desktop, where the tradition was known among those developers who had their ideas appropriated as being “Sherlocked.”

I’d like to nominate a category of applications that should be ripe for Sherlocking; bar code scanners. These apps use a devices camera to act as a bar code or QR code scanner, allowing the user to be sent to a website or lookup a products info based on the UPC. A popular example would be Red Laser.

The feature could be added as another mode in the iOS Camera App, and exposed as an API so any developer could have the option of adding the functionality to their camera app. Having the ability to scan 2D codes out of the box would be convenient for end users, and reduce the need to download a single purpose app that is handy yet only occasionally used.