SmoothTrack vs Visual Pinball
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
SmoothTrack
Enhance your simulation gaming experience with phone-based head and eye tracking. This app allows for intuitive, 6-degrees-of-freedom head movements to control your in-game perspective without any extra hardware. Seamlessly look around cockpits, check blind spots, or zoom in on details with natural head gestures.
- 6DoF head tracking
- Optional eye tracking
- No extra hardware required
- Works with FreeTrack/TrackIR games
- Customizable view presets
- Exaggerated head movements for control
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SmoothTrack 2.0 uses the head and eye tracking AR capabilities of your phone to provide the simplest and best head tracker for 6 degrees-of-freedom head movements in your sim games. ----- "The best new controller on the market." - Charlie Hall, Polygon Customer reviews: "SmoothTrack just works. Less than 5 minutes to install, setup and fly. Love not being tethered to my desk! 5 stars!!" "This worked perfectly and way better than expected! Totally enhanced my experience with MFS 2020!" --- It's a near magical experience to seamlessly slightly move your head and have your game perspective immediately play along (the movements in the game are exaggerated so that you only have to make slight movements of your head to control the camera). Additionally, since version 2, your eyes are also optionally tracked and will nudge the camera based on where you're glancing on screen! - Simply lean forward to get a closer look at your Flight Simulator cockpit! - Look a bit up to see the overhead panel of your A320! - Simply shift your head a bit to the right to see the direction of the space station you're approaching in Elite: Dangerous! - Look a bit left before a hard left turn in Euro Truck Simulator 2! No headset or extra equipment of any kind is required! Simply set up your device so that it can see your face. Using simple camera gestures, you can shift your perspective in-game. Also, if you want, you can store views (say, a copilot angle, or a cockpit closeup) as Quick Views for easy access later. Your head movements are slightly exaggerated which enables you to look out of a cockpit side window with just a slight movement of your head to the left. Any game that supports the FreeTrack or TrackIR protocol will work with this, including: - Microsoft Flight Simulator - Microsoft FSX - DCS World - Elite: Dangerous - IL2: Sturmovik - Euro Truck Simulator 2 - Kerbal Space Program - ...and many, many others! Email and Discord support is provided if there are any issues (or if you have any ideas for new features!).
Visual Pinball
Experience the full virtual pinball simulator with realistic physics, lighting, and sound. This open-source app offers a redesigned interface, enhanced table management, and the complete desktop experience for mobile devices. Enjoy a vast library of tables without ads or in-app purchases.
- Realistic physics, lighting, and sound
- Redesigned interface with Liquid Glass
- Full in-game menu for graphics and controls
- Support for various backglass and display types
- Easy table import and management
- Optimized memory usage
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The official Visual Pinball app. Built by volunteers since 2000 and open source since 2010, Visual Pinball is the simulator the virtual pinball community has been playing for over two decades. More than 70 people have contributed to it, and this app runs the same engine as the desktop version, so every table plays with the physics, lighting and sound its creator intended. No ads. No in-app purchases. No tracking. Made by volunteers. Two years of work from the Visual Pinball volunteers, in one update. Thank you for your patience, and for playing! A FRESH NEW LOOK • Redesigned for iOS 26 with Liquid Glass • Favorites and recently played tables at the top of your list • Search, sorting and three tile sizes • Light, Dark or System appearance • New loading screen that shows progress THE FULL DESKTOP EXPERIENCE • The complete Visual Pinball in-game menu for graphics, sound, controls and table options • Remap every button on keyboards and game controllers • Save settings for every table, or just the one you're playing MORE TABLES, LOOKING BETTER • Show the backglass and score display (DMD, alphanumeric or reels) on screen, right where you want them • Support for PUP packs, FlexDMD, B2S backglasses, video playback and VNI colorizations • All the latest physics and rendering improvements from the desktop version • Much lower memory use: textures are compressed on first load, then cached EASIER TABLE MANAGEMENT • Import .zip files, along with .vpx and .vpxz • Share any table as a single .vpxz file • The web file manager can now upload whole folders, extract archives, edit scripts and settings, and show the log live AND MORE • Many stability and memory fixes This version requires iOS 26.6 or later.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: Visual Pinball at Free against SmoothTrack's $14.99. Visual Pinball also leads on update cadence (fortnightly vs every 4 months). SmoothTrack's advantage is rating (4.7 vs 4.3) and chart position (#153 vs unranked). On review sentiment, ads, in-app purchases and device support there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Visual Pinball is free to download; SmoothTrack costs $14.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
SmoothTrack holds the better App Store score, 4.7 against 4.3. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 250 and 75 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 86% of SmoothTrack's written reviews are positive against 78% of Visual Pinball's.
SmoothTrack ships an update every 4 months, Visual Pinball fortnightly. The most recent releases landed on November 3, 2026 and November 5, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | SmoothTrack | Visual Pinball |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $14.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 4.7 (250 ratings) — better | 4.3 (75 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 85.7% of reviews — better | 78.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 250 — better | 75 |
| Update frequency | Every 4 months | Fortnightly — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Paid | Free — better |
| Best chart rank | #153 — better | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 26.0 — better | 26.6 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 3 MB | 134 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 9+ |
| Developer | John Goering | Jason Millard |
Customer experience
SmoothTrack
Visual Pinball
User reviews
SmoothTrack
From 250 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🚀 Smooth and accurate head tracking
- 👍 Affordable alternative to expensive hardware
- 💡 Doesn't require any additional equipment
- 🚀 Easy to set up and use
- 👍 Enhances immersion in flight simulators
Room to improve
- 🐛 Occasional connectivity issues
- 🔋 Drains phone battery quickly
- 🔧 Requires some technical knowledge for setup
- 🔧 Calibration and sensitivity adjustments needed
Visual Pinball
From 75 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🚀 Awesome way to play virtual pinball on the go
- 👍 Super easy to set up with minimal file prep time
- 👍 Insane that I can play favorite pins on just my phone
- 👍 Fantastic portable implementation of VPX
- 👍 Fun and exciting to archive the history of pinball
Room to improve
- 🔧 More ability to adjust table settings needed
- 🔧 Struggling to manage camera angle
- 🔧 No fullscreen on iPad, plunger and outlanes cropped
- 🔧 Some tables don't work or have issues
Bugs and requests
SmoothTrack
Reported bugs
2 issues- Tracking issues with certain phone positions
- Compatibility problems with some devices/OSes
Requested features
3 requests- Background mode support
- Ability to use rear camera
- Improved UI and customization options
Visual Pinball
Reported bugs
2 issues- Tables don't load for some users
- Certain complex/intensive tables error out or run at low FPS
Requested features
6 requests- List of most played tables
- Ability to reposition DMD
- Option to skip startup checks for some tables
- Ability to edit table scripts on the app
- Direct link to table depository
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- iPad version with more screen space
In-app purchases
SmoothTrack
No in-app purchases
Visual Pinball
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is SmoothTrack free?
Is Visual Pinball free?
Which has better reviews, SmoothTrack or Visual Pinball?
Do SmoothTrack or Visual Pinball have ads?
Which is updated more often, SmoothTrack or Visual Pinball?
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