Here’s one of those no-brainer, dead-simple applications that should’ve been in the box - a way to measure lengths using the iPhone. The nice thing about this little feature is that it actually isn’t an app, but merely a calibrated graphic of a ruler that is to accurate and to scale.
Available from a website called, interestingly enough, an error occurred while processing this directive.com, it’s pretty simple to use, and needs no wireless connection whatsover.
Just download the graphic and put it into your photo album, and when the need arises access the photo and measure away. I checked with a physical tape measure and it seems the ruler is apparently spot on and lost nothing in the translation.
A couple of unavoidable and obvious limitations, though. We can only measure three-inch or 7.5 cm objects, and those in a vertical orientation - if you turn the iPhone on its side, the picture adjusts orientation automatically because of the iPhone sensor and renders the scale useless. But hey, it’s free; we can’t really complain.
We’re not quite sure if the iPod Touch’s screen has precisely the same dimensions and resolution as the iPhone in practice so we don’t know if the ruler would be accurate on the iPod, but it shouldn’t be all that different. We’re sure someone will chime in on this soon. (Bernie?)
Nice. Would that we had things like these more often, huh?
