I just recently got a Griffin Clarifi case for my iPhone 3G which has a macro lens attachment built in to try it out. I have found that it can dramtically improve the sharpness of iPhone’s built in camera in close range. The picture of the business card above was taken on my iPhone 3G with the Clarifi and then processed with JotNot for the iPhone.
Clarifi improves images of business cards, reciepts, and other documents where trying to capture the maximum number of pixels requires holding the iPhone very close to the document. The reason for this is that the iPhone camera has a fixed-focus lens that Apple most likely set to focus at infinity. When used on close subjects the image normally comes out very fuzzy. The Clarifi is not helpful for all documents, however. In particular, full page letter-sized documents are so large that you have to hold your iPhone far from them to fit them in. At this range the normal iPhone lens works well enough.
You don’t have to take my word for it, though. There is a great in depth review of the Clarifi case at http://www.theiphoneblog.com. They give it ★★★★★. They also provide lots of close-ups of the case as well a few before/after pictures showing the performance of the macro lens.
-Abe
