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Good mobile apps for engineers?
2

Good mobile apps for engineers?

Good mobile apps for engineers?

(OP)
What are some helpful mobile/tablet apps you use for work?

RE: Good mobile apps for engineers?

Havent found a single one of any use, doing things the old fashioned way still works for lots of us

RE: Good mobile apps for engineers?

(OP)
Thank you. Just seems like there's an app out there for everything else, except I can't find anything particularly useful for engineering.

RE: Good mobile apps for engineers?

I use AbleMath for a calculator. It has all the standard functions, you can put a long string of items with parentheses for calculation, and you can scroll up to see earlier calculations. I don't carry my TI-86 much anymore.
The compass is also a good feature. There is also a flashlight app which I find useful.
These are all for field work. I almost never use the iphone in the office except to play games on slow days.

RE: Good mobile apps for engineers?

(OP)
Thanks jgailla, will check out AbleMath. Haha... yes, my primary use for my iphone and tablet is for games too, trying to see if there are better ways to put them "to work".

RE: Good mobile apps for engineers?

I don't use tablets or smartphones - my regular pc and laptop meet my needs - but I would think you could look up pdf's of documents, standards, catalogs, tables etc to save you the time of actually finding the hardcopy and looking it up.

RE: Good mobile apps for engineers?

We use the following for I-Phone.

Dropbox - Take photos in the field from your phone, they sync to dropbox almost immediately allowing people in the office to see what you see. All files can be accessed from there for review or transfer.

Adobe - Lets you create a PDF from a photo, then you can add comments, sketches, etc.

Hilti Anchors - Good library of post installed anchors. This is the only one that I use at my desk in lieu of my PC.

New Millennium has a decent app for joist sizing.

RE: Good mobile apps for engineers?

Brother "iPrint & Scan" has come in handy on a couple of occasions.

It can easily connect to Brother brand wireless printers, and print from the phone, which is kind of cool, or scan to the phone from a multifunction printer, which is impressive for saving and/or sending copies of documents.

I wish it worked with other brands of printers, or that other mfgr's wireless printer apps worked as well.

Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

RE: Good mobile apps for engineers?

Mike - Epson has something similar, called Epson Connect

RE: Good mobile apps for engineers?

I sometimes use Myscript Calculator. You hand write the equation, so it makes it harder to make a mistake.

It sometimes misinterprets what you write, but you get used to it.

RE: Good mobile apps for engineers?

I recently bought Drawboard pdf for my Surface (99.99% of people just lost interest). It is easily the best PDF markup program I've ever used.

RE: Good mobile apps for engineers?

Evernote is probably the most useful app I have ever used. Somebody actually just recommended Trello to me ~15 min ago. It appears to be good for projects and I'm going to investigate its use later today.

Evernote is the best though and it syncs between my office/home/mobile/tablet.

RE: Good mobile apps for engineers?

I'm an RPN logic guy, so I have an HP41C app on my phone. GREAT!
Another useful one is "Converter". All sorts of conversion factors that I can never remember.

RE: Good mobile apps for engineers?

(OP)
Thank you guys for your suggestions, these are very helpful. I guess the tablet is still more useful used in conjunction with the desktop, but without the PC/laptop I'll probably go back to playing games, haha.

RE: Good mobile apps for engineers?

I use the whole "smart tools" collection routinely in the field. Especially the smart ruler, compass, protractor, and bubble level. I also use "Steel Shapes" frequently to confirm beam sizes in the field. I second the New Millenium apps for joists.

Beyond that, I use the flashlight and calculator apps routinely but have used several and have no preference.

PE, SE
Eastern United States

"If a builder builds a house for someone, and does not construct it properly, and the house which he built falls in and kills its owner, then that builder shall be put to death!"
~Code of Hammurabi

RE: Good mobile apps for engineers?

How about the CareerBuilder job finder app....

Definition of irony: A Ford Focus driver with ADD...

RE: Good mobile apps for engineers?

Why not do it the "old fashioned way" with PCs and laptops? I don't see the need for a smartphone or tablet, and certainly wouldn't work off of one.

RE: Good mobile apps for engineers?

Quote (sbozy25)

How about the CareerBuilder job finder app....

That one got a chuckle out of me, sb...

Dan - Owner
http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com

RE: Good mobile apps for engineers?

MyScript is cute, but just not that useful for doing anything serious. If your finger can write, it can push simulated RPN calculator buttons. Moreover, MyScript doesn't really have that much functionality, and the recognition/conversion seems to be on its own timeline, without any way to change it. That means you could be in the middle of entering and expression, and wind up inserting the tailend of the expression into arbitrary places in the rest of the equation that got converted.

When I have to use my phone as a calculator, I want something that's reliable/repeatable, so RPN Calculator is my choice. Most of the emulators suffer from trying to fit something that was designed for a different form factor into a smartphone screen, and it generally doesn't get pulled off.

TTFN
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RE: Good mobile apps for engineers?

Hi IRStuff

I agree with you that it is not that great for anything too serious or complex. If that is an issue, I would not recommend anything on a mobile phone winky smile

It suits some of the tasks I want to perform, it may (or may not) suit others too.

RE: Good mobile apps for engineers?

I don't know anyone who is using a smart phone to "design"...but I've found it immensely useful for field work to have such a variety of calculators, databases, and measuring tools on hand.

One other great app is the Bosch photo something-or-other. You can capture a picture and then impose dimensions/text directly onto the photo to download or email later.

PE, SE
Eastern United States

"If a builder builds a house for someone, and does not construct it properly, and the house which he built falls in and kills its owner, then that builder shall be put to death!"
~Code of Hammurabi

RE: Good mobile apps for engineers?

Well, I've taken the initial step into never leaving my home again. Android SDK is loaded and ready to be used. Someone has to write these "apps", we can't all just use them.

- Steve

RE: Good mobile apps for engineers?

I'm stunned to see that in 20+ posts not one has mentioned Wolfram Alpha? Sure, one might not have to get the actual app, but it's a bit easier than to use the web browser in the phone.

If you haven't came across Wolfram before it's like an "engineers google" that will calculate, convert, plot and so forth just about anything. You can ask for anything from solving equations to "diameter 5mm and force 2N, what is the mechanical stress?" and it usually understands the question no matter how you make the input.

http://www.wolframalpha.com/examples/MechanicalEng...
https://www.wolframalpha.com/examples/ControlSyste...
(and so forth)

RE: Good mobile apps for engineers?

Somewhat OT - has someone a good collection of formulas optimezed for an e-reader? At least mine is a pain in the asse fo searching and jumping between pages, paper is far better here IMHO. But I don't want to always lug around 2 or three smallish books.

RE: Good mobile apps for engineers?

@MartinLe:

As much as I hate Windows8, I like the concept of lugging around one of those new, small, convertible laptop/tablet computers. I just can't get away from having a real computer OS with everything copied from my office PC.

RE: Good mobile apps for engineers?

The apps that I really like:

* i41CX+
* RCL59 (for nostalgia's sake)
* Math Studio
* Pipe Sizes (Garner Labs)
* Pipe Tools (Bri Chem)
* Steam Tools (Spirax / Sarco)
* Steam Tables
* IAPWS-IF97 Steam Tables (Zittau / Goerlitz University Of Applied Sciences)
* Unit Converter Pro
* Colebrook-White

RE: Good mobile apps for engineers?

RealCalc is a good simple calculator app. I use it often when I'm not at my desk.

RE: Good mobile apps for engineers?

Google Drive for spreadsheets I have made on the go.
Droid48 for when I forget my calculator.

B+W Engineering and Design
Los Angeles Civil Engineer and Structural Engineer
http://bwengr.com

RE: Good mobile apps for engineers?

I have no idea what kind of app was used (or if it was even an app) but when I bought a house the home inspector just used his smart phone, took all the pictures with it, wrote all the notes for it and I had the full report in my email within the hour. I was impressed with the process.

I use my tablet to read pdf copies of textbooks I own and basically have an arsenal of information at my finger tips when in meetings.

I always have the Engineering Cookbook on my cellphone, just for quick references when I haven't had enough caffeine on an early Monday morning meeting 3eyes. And I have a quick steam calculator on my cellphone also.

RE: Good mobile apps for engineers?

I actually use few new traps:

3D Brain, Engineering Libraries and definitely Molecules..!! too affirmative for my daily use to cater different thought processes.

Abigail
http://www.agileinfoways.com

RE: Good mobile apps for engineers?

TechCalc is a good scientific calculator. Graphing, a quick converter, and a built in Periodic Table.

RE: Good mobile apps for engineers?

I started using Mech. Eng. Toolbox. Good range of basic formulas/ conversions/ calculators/ materials. A lot of the apps listed above rolled into one.
Worth checking out.

Comprehension is not understanding. Understanding is not wisdom. And it is wisdom that gives us the ability to apply what we know, to our real world situations

RE: Good mobile apps for engineers?

According to many reviews, that app crashes a lot.
Reviews of others are more positive.
Have you done a comparison, SomptingGuy?

STF

RE: Good mobile apps for engineers?

It's not crashed once for me (Samsung Galaxy 3, Android 4.3).

I've not done a comparison with others (hands up on that one).

It appeals to me because it gives direct control over the things that matter to me (block size, sample rate, frequency resolution, averaging). Like it's been written by someone that knows the background to spectral analysis rather than someone who wants to make a flashy toy. (First application for me was to measure my car's idle speed by picking-off the 2E frequency, adjusting the DSP parameters to get the exact measurement I wanted). Text dump of latest and averaged spectra is pretty simple too. Friends can't see a use for it. Surprisingly, most colleagues can't either.

- Steve

RE: Good mobile apps for engineers?

Thanks SG,
It's apps like the ones I'm seeing here that make me want to ditch my flip-phone Nokia and get an android after all. Despite the fact that my Nokia still lasts almost 3 weeks without a recharge.

STF

RE: Good mobile apps for engineers?

Once you enter the dark world of Android head on over to the Google site and download Ellipse, a programming environment for Android. It includes a phone emulator so you can try out your newly written apps without a phone or tablet.

Cheers

Greg Locock


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