Day 18: Level
Many of you asked for it, so here it is - a spirit level! The accuracy isn’t perfect, but I think it’s good enough for small jobs like hanging a picture or something similar. Also, because of the placement of the sensor, it appears that some sides/orientations may be more accurate than others. Enjoy!
Update - I’m curious to know how accurate you find the level. Let me know in the comments.
November 18th, 2007 at 8:54 am
nice thanks slot sean, now it just needs a stud finder lol.
November 18th, 2007 at 9:31 am
this app ain’t bad, first one I’ve actually liked.
November 18th, 2007 at 10:02 am
how do you use this)
November 18th, 2007 at 10:08 am
I don’t understand this game/app ….
November 18th, 2007 at 10:10 am
Has neither of you ever used a level?
November 18th, 2007 at 10:24 am
Dang, nice grammar, Sean.
Props.
November 18th, 2007 at 10:28 am
I confess, I may be a little sleepy today, I read ’spirit level’ and loaded it up. I then proceeded to move the ball between the posts waiting for the pay off. It didn’t heighten my spirit at all. LOL.
I finally realized it was a level and have attempted to straighten out some hanging pictures. I compared the results with my governed level and found it to be rather inaccurate. I wonder if you could add a settings feature that allows the user to lock in the corrected difference?
-p
November 18th, 2007 at 10:46 am
Sean your app-a-day effort is a fantastic help for someone trying to learn to code for iphone. I applaud your work and especially the source release. I fully intend to hit donate at some point this month. I hope others are doing the same.
November 18th, 2007 at 10:48 am
first one i am keeping, good job!
a great app idea would be a piano you can play with your fingers, and because of multi-touch you could play more than one note at a time!!! it could be great if done nicely.
November 18th, 2007 at 11:19 am
very cool app…Been waiting for this one..even if it is not 100% accurate as some are stating I think I will still find MUCH use for it in a pinch. None-the-less, keep it up this project is outstanding! Now if we could only get an altimeter in the iphone..already cant wait to see what tomorrow brings..
November 18th, 2007 at 12:36 pm
very nice app sean fairly acurata and very handy
November 18th, 2007 at 1:02 pm
Very nice app that is a keeper. I tested with my Stanley level by ridding iPhone on top of it, and it is quite accurate, it has same accuracy as my STanley level. Thanks for this nice app.
November 18th, 2007 at 5:39 pm
love it. I’m a cabinet builder.
I would love to see an add on that allowed using it sideways… So you could hold it on , say a picture, and still see the graphic… Like a straight level.
November 18th, 2007 at 5:48 pm
hahaha , look at that, I can!
November 18th, 2007 at 9:27 pm
Callibration needed…. this is awesome! repeat, this is awesome!
I’d love to have a little calibration built in. Basically, to calibrate it, you’d flip the “level” over, the bubble should be in the same place as it was on the other side. if it is not then the level is not correct, but then you adjust accordingly.
..something to think about.
How to calibrate a level:
http://www.leveldevelopments.com/PDF_Documents/engineers-level-calibration-instructions.pdf
November 18th, 2007 at 9:58 pm
@james: awesome - thanks for the link! It seems like the calibration would be slightly harder since the iPhone has buttons on 2 of the 4 sides and they cause the phone to sit somewhat at an angle. An additional problem is that I’m pretty sure the sensor in the phone is not centered.
November 18th, 2007 at 11:23 pm
I know you get a lot of requests like these but for your next application can you create a mountain. Just a simple mountain. I really enjoy hiking up mountains and camping so it’d be pretty nifty to turn your iPhone into a mountain.
Or even a hill… Yeah, a hill would work nicely, too.
Thanks.
November 19th, 2007 at 1:46 am
Excellent !! Maybe in the future you can replace the “bubble” with a more realistic one. Great job !!
November 19th, 2007 at 2:28 am
Great work - keep up the good work. Heres another idea = I reckon an app which when run on a pc receives accelerometer readings from the iphone via wifi and steers the vehicle accordingly…ie an iPhone steering wheel would be awesome
November 19th, 2007 at 10:32 am
Awesome!!!!!
November 19th, 2007 at 2:24 pm
Sean, the level was actually helpful… I couldn’t for the life of me find one to hang a picture… so I busted out my touch.. and this little app worked quite handily.
Thanks for the good work!
November 19th, 2007 at 4:21 pm
Well, without the ability to calibrate this, it seems to be more of a proof of concept right now. I have to tilt my iPhone about 5 degrees off axis to put the bubble in the center.
It is cool. Would be great to always have a level with you, but we need a way to calibrate it.
November 19th, 2007 at 4:32 pm
Yup, yup. It definitely needs calibration. Lay it flat on any surface that’s a hair off level. When I do this and the bubble is on the left side of the circle, I rotate the iPhone 90 degrees and keep it in the same spot (the phone is still flat) and the bubble is now on the BOTTOM of the circle. If it were a true level, the bubble would stay on the left. Rotate it another 90 degrees and the bubble is on the RIGHT side of the circle. It appears that the back of the iPhone isn’t level with the accelerometer inside the phone.
Still, it is cool to show off to the friends who think the iPhone is just a gimmick. I just hope they don’t ever need me to actually USE my phone as a level. Level’s need to be fairly precise.
November 19th, 2007 at 9:53 pm
lol ste released iLevel just now, your level kicks theirs ass though sean. good job. may i suggest a sports apps that gives up to the minute scores for all popular sports and a feed that cycles through headlines. that seems like something that shouldve been built in but i would appreciate it a lot if you could make it.
November 25th, 2007 at 12:57 pm
Can you or someone add a character display that gives a text indication of how many degrees or units of a measurment the level is off from 0 or center? So if a measured plane is say 2 degrees off from level, we can know that exactly…?
November 26th, 2007 at 7:41 am
wonder if you could graduate it
it’s pretty amazing.
November 26th, 2007 at 7:10 pm
[…] way? To me, a little over a week ago, the answer came in the form of a downloadable app called Level that makes use of the iPhone’s accelerometer to give users a quick and dirty (yet eerily […]
November 28th, 2007 at 8:26 pm
This could be a really cool app if it were a little more sensitive. The calibration thing is pretty critical also. Have you tried Labyrinth? Now that is unbelievably realistic and fluid. It would also be awesome if it had a little read out that gave a angle callout. THAT would make it incredibly awesome!
December 2nd, 2007 at 5:36 pm
Excellent !!