iPhone virtual carpentry tools are pretty much useless

Pop Mech reviews four virtual tools for the iPhone—a fake plumb, level, a fake tape measure, and a set of fake calipers—and finds them all lacking.

[#1 posted by hectorinwa , March 16, 2009 2:02 PM]

Score one for the G1. Our level app doesn't need to be calibrated. (why does the iphone's?)

[#2 posted by sheshe , March 16, 2009 2:08 PM]

i got lazy last week and tried to hang my art show with the ihandy level app.. it was so horrible that i had to rehang everything with a real level.

[#3 posted by The Lizardman , March 16, 2009 3:22 PM]

Somewhere a fanboy is going to build a house using these iphone tools and then claim the odd angles and poor construction are a feature brought to him by the great leader's blessed device and we should all lament not living in similar squalor

[#4 posted by Anonymous , March 16, 2009 7:21 PM]

@ Lizardman:

"The Sum of his Discourse was to this Effect. That about Forty Years ago, certain Persons went up to Laputa, either upon Business or Diversion; and after five Months Continuance came back with a very little Smattering in Mathematicks, but full of Volatile Spirits acquired in that Airy Region. That these Persons upon their Return, began to dislike the Management of every Thing below; and fell into Schemes of putting all Arts, Sciences, Languages, and Mechanicks upon a new Foot. To this End they procured a Royal Patent for erecting an Academy of PROJECTORS in Lagado: And the Humour prevailed so strongly among the People, that there is not a Town of any Consequence in the Kingdom without such an Academy. In these Colleges, the Professors contrive new Rules and Methods of Agriculture and Building, and new Instruments and Tools for all Trades and Manufactures, whereby, as they undertake, one Man shall do the Work of Ten; a Palace may be built in a Week, of Materials so durable as to last for ever without repairing. All the Fruits of the Earth shall come to Maturity at whatever Season we think fit to chuse, and increase an Hundred Fold more than they do at present; with innumerable other happy Proposals. The only Inconvenience is, that none of these Projects are yet brought to Perfection; and in the mean time, the whole Country lies miserably waste, the Houses in Ruins, and the People without Food or Cloaths. By all which, instead of being discouraged, they are Fifty Times more violently bent upon prosecuting their Schemes, driven equally on by Hope and Despair: That, as for himself, being not of an enterprizing Spirit, he was content to go on in the old Forms; to live in the Houses his Ancestors had built, and act as they did in every Part of Life without Innovation. That, some few other Persons of Quality and Gentry had done the same; but were looked on with an eye of Contempt and ill Will, as enemies to Art, Ignorant, and ill Commonwealthmen, preferring their own Ease and Sloth before the general Improvement of their Country. "

[#5 posted by The Lizardman , March 16, 2009 8:02 PM]

@4 Bravo

[#6 posted by TheCrawNotTheCraw , March 16, 2009 9:33 PM]

I am using the Virtual Hammer application for my iPhone. For some reason, my iPhone keeps breaking; this is the sixth one I've had to buy since I purchased this app. Does anyone know: is it possible for iPhone apps to "brick" an iPhone?

P.S. Speaking of bricks, I also used the iPhone to stir some cement before I laid a new walkway. The walkway looks great, but I can't get the cement off the iPhone.

[#7 posted by Anonymous , March 16, 2009 10:58 PM]

@8 I believe you need to use the iScrape app to get the concrete off.

[#8 posted by beneditor , March 17, 2009 3:15 AM]

Dude, these fake tools are.... FAKE!!!

*internet gets a little larger*

[#9 posted by dculberson , March 17, 2009 7:17 AM]

I can't even imagine developing those, seeing how bad they are, and yet still asking $.99 for them.

[#10 posted by DMcK , March 17, 2009 12:00 PM]

Don't have the other tools, but once the level is calibrated (I used a head of camera tripod with its bubble levels) it seems to work fine for small tasks (picture-hanging, putting up the odd small shelf). I wouldn't build a house with it though.