Developer turns iPhone into scale via 3D Touch

Apple has built in a touchscreen on its new iPhones that can distinguish how much pressure is put on it. That gave a developer the idea to use this technology to build a scale.

A developer under the pseudonym FlexMonkey explains on his blog how he turned an iPhone into a scale. He calls it the Plum-O-Meter himself, since the concept should mainly serve as a way to weigh which plum is the heaviest, according to FlexMonkey. The developed tool works as follows: two plums have to be placed on the touchscreen, after which a circle indicates which of the two is heavier.

Because the pressure-measuring capacities in the iPhone are limited, it is not indicated how heavy the plum placed on the touchscreen is. Instead, the software displays the normalized pressure as a percentage of the maximum pressure. The 3D Touch technology that Apple has built into its new iPhones is actually intended to distinguish three different pressure levels, based on a user’s touch.

It is of course also possible to use other types of fruit, or other attributes, on the scale. However, anyone who intended to weigh grapes is out of luck: according to the maker, they are too light to be weighed by the Plum-O-Meter. The source code for the software has been put on GitHub by FlexMonkey, but an application in the App Store is not yet available.