Here’s a confession: I was terrible at math in school. From Algebra 1 on, I just couldn’t keep the various symbols, numbers, and denominators I was faced with straight, and so I flunked pretty much every test.
But I grew up in the 90’s. If I was in high school today, I’d never fail a math test again. I’d use the new iOS app PhotoMath instead, which literally solves math problems like magic.
Although it’s not available yet — it will be out for iOS starting in 2015 — PhotoMath promises to be the genius, algorithm-reading calculator we’ve always wanted.
Instead of typing in a math problem, you just point your iPhone’s camera at a math problem, PhotoMath slurps it up, uses OCR to decode it into computer math, and then solves it for you automatically!
Here’s how PhotoMath explains the process:
PhotoMath reads and solves mathematical expressions by using the camera of your mobile device in real time. It makes math easy and simple by educating users how to solve math problems.
Even better? It’ll show your work. So not only does the app help teach you math, it will also help you cheat your way through the most arduous math exams.
Like we said, PhotoMath won’t be available until 2015. But something tells me that when it’s released, there’ll be a “No iPhones on algebra class” rule in effect, countrywide.
John Brownlee is a writer for Fast Company, and a contributing writer here at CoM. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.
17 responses to “This magic math app is like having Stephen Hawking on your iPhone”
This app is already out. Or was. I have it on my iPhone.
“…PhotoMath won’t be available until 2015.”
Are you sure? I just dowloaded it.
Yep, I too have it here in the UK store.
It’s weird how people still searched for it, despite believing it to no be released yet.
It’s a shame if such simple maths problems require an app. Whats the use of tests & learning anymore then. Humans might as well just stay and watch TV. Rot their brains for lack of exercise. No need to think, work out a solution anymore. What a boring pointless existence that would be.
Anyone who is unable to do/understand math without a calculator is unable to do/understand math.
Wall-E
That’s so mind numbingly pretentious and elitist.
How good are you at languages? How good are you at civics? At geography, history or music? How good are your social skills?
I excelled in everything but maths in school. I just couldn’t get my head around it. A lot of people are like that. It requires a different kind of logic and some people need a lot more help with it than others. The one thing that did help me when I was in school was seeing the solution the next day in class and being able to figure out how the teacher got there, but it wasn’t enough for me to really excel. Having this when I was in school would have helped me a lot.
It’s not. Not close to that around here.
I am good at 3 languages. Was able to top Civics, Geography, History, Maths, Science, even some languages in my school. Like 50/50 or 100/100.
And that was because I had shifted from a school which taught a tougher more interesting syllabus, to a far dumber one. The earlier syllabus covered concepts in 6th grade which the new one barely touched in the 9th.
The point is, having experienced tougher problems in school early on made my far better at them. The mind evolves to handle tough situations. And dumbs down when it isn’t stimulated anymore.
The kind of equations that are shown above? We eat them like peanuts in grade 6. We touch calculus: differentiation, integration, limits, partial differentiation and much more by our 12th grade.
And never used calculators for any of those. That meant understanding all those integral scenarios (more than 25 of them) and mincing through them in seconds. Heck we did those calculations faster than it took to input them into a stupid calculator.
And this is barely elitist. This is normal, like frigging normal for any student here.
It is even more fun when using Vedic Maths. Even 3rd grade students were running through big multiplications and divisions when I taught them in an hour on a NGO teaching sprint.
You got to let go of silly crutches of technology. Our brain’s far more powerful & sophisticated. Just need some more competition, prodding and will.
It doesn’t work… I tried it on a number of simple algebraic equations on ixl.com and it never provided a proper answer.
And that IS the problem! You, Derp, know the right from the wrong answer! A bunch of math illiterates don’t! But the machine gave me the answer, it has to be right, doesn’t it? And another generation of humans fail to reason or to think!
The big bang theory anyone?
When I went on the App Store it was the first result
Great! Now you can be totally math illiterate, and stupid to boot!
I don’t know if schools are going to allow you to use an app like this on tests. :-)
The best way to learn Math, or any subject for that matter is to spend 2x as much time doing the homework. We all have various subjects that we do better or worse than another. Some people learn as they get older if they spend the time and WANT to learn.
Go to a local junior college and enroll in a Math class to learn what you didn’t in high school. Yes, it costs money, yes it takes time and effort, but I guarantee you if you retake the classes you screwed up in high school later in life, you’ll feel a LOT better about yourself that you could actually learn a subject you were once lousy at.
You actually might cruise through the classes with no problems and Ace the tests the second time around.
Who knows, you might find a course in another subject that interests you enough to change you outlook on life and maybe even start a new career or hobby.
The act of putting a pencil to a piece of paper has a lot more connection between you and the subject you are learning, taking a photo and having an app do everything for you is cheating yourself out an education. First you have to master it without any assistance from a app like this. remember, society did come up with a lot of cool inventions without the use of computers, calculators and even the slide rule since they originally had to do it the old fashioned way, but there was a lot of really cool things that came out before calculators and computers. Look at the architecture of the older buildings, they flew planes before calculators came out. Lots of technology was invented far before the calculator that we still use today.
Does this app do anything other than tell you the answer? If the answer is all it shows, there’s no point. I’d think it were an amazing app if it maybe showed you how to find the answer along with giving you the answer. The public education system in Canada, at least BC, is already going to crap and apps like these will only get it there quicker.
**It is cool that it shows the steps to complete it. I still don’t think most people will click through to see the steps involved to solve the equation.
^^^^^^^ is al94num3r1c 7y5dex16.
That’s alphanumeric dyslexic for those who read properly.:) Lots of years of tutoring through college and uni to get past that.
Just LD’d this app from the Canadian App Store as well. My kids are gonna LOOOVE me tomorrow. LOL!