Comparison

iDeal vs Pluma

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

iDeal

This app allows magicians to perform card tricks by predicting or forcing cards. It enables users to know a card thought of by an audience member without a physical deck and practice card stacks. Customize the app with your own name and card stacks for unique performances.

Highlights
  • Predict random cards
  • Force cards at random numbers
  • Know audience's thought-of card
  • Practice card stacks
  • Customizable app name
  • Create custom card stacks
  • Peek chosen card on Apple Watch/PeekSmith
Read full description

iDeal - Stack it, Predict it, Force it, Peek it! Want to read the minds of your audience who is thinking of a 'Random' Card? Want to predict a randomly chosen card? Want to force a card at a random number? Want to a know the card your audience member is thinking of without a deck of cards? Want to practice your favourite card stack? iDeal is for magicians of all ages to fool their audience with this diabolically simple app. Customise your app with a name of your choice, choose a card to force from a preselected stack, or create your own card stack to force. Peek the chosen card on any Apple Watch or a PeekSmith, and know the position of it instantly in a chosen stack. iDeal can be used for any live or online magic show.

About

Pluma

This app enhances impression boards with advanced AI for text and drawing recognition. It offers seamless integration with various third-party apps and devices, enabling new routines and providing a powerful yet user-friendly experience.

Highlights
  • Advanced AI text and drawing recognition
  • Multiple impression board support
  • Earworm and PeekSmith integration
  • Offline text recognition
  • Apple Watch app with covert mode
  • Bridge & Inject integration
Features
Read full description

Pluma is a fresh take on an impression board app, connecting to the boards you may already own. It offers dramatically better text recognition and powerful features, whilst simultaneously being dramatically better designed. Together, it's more powerful yet easier to use than the core apps offered by most impression boards. It also connects with my suite of apps as well as many third party apps, devices and services, enabling brand new routines never before possible. Features include: ** Advanced AI Text and Drawing Recognition Pluma AI offers best-in-class AI recognition, which can detect handwritten text AND drawings, in any orientation. ** Multiple Board support (beta) Receive peeks from up to four impression devices simultaneously! ** Earworm Integration Make a prediction in the YouTube app on your spectator's phone. Then, have your spectator write the name of any song on the impression pad. Pluma AI integrates with Earworm to do the rest: they just turn up the volume on the spectator's phone to find the chosen song playing in their YouTube app! ** Supports Multiple Board Types Currently supports boards from Lumen Pro, Iarvel, Pitata, Ultra Sharpie, Ultra Sharpie Neo, Oblivious Engage, PMA and Wave, with more brands added over time. ** Offline Text Recognition For times when there's no signal, Pluma includes excellent realtime offline AI text recognition at no extra charge. ** PeekSmith Integration Pluma connects directly to PeekSmith, letting you get your peek during performance. ** Lumen Duo Integration Pluma also connects directly to Lumen Duo, letting you get your peek even more covertly. ** Earpiece Support Pluma can automatically speak the recognised text to your covert earpiece. ** Apple Watch App Get your peek on the custom built Apple Watch app, with optional covert mode. ** Notifications Compatible with any Bluetooth peek device that supports third party notifications. ** Bridge & Inject Integration Automatically send your peek to the Bridge or Inject apps, which integrates Pluma with many magic apps, services and devices. ** Powerful Features, Easy To Use Pluma brings multiple, advanced innovations from my previous apps (such as Touch To Peek and app integration via polling), whilst simultaneously built to be easy to use and understand. ** Much More Pluma offers features to automatically scale, automatically send peek data and automatically clear. It offers per-board calibration settings, AI optimisation settings, intuitive history features, auto-save to photos, board battery indicatiors, and much, much more. Notes A physical impression board is required. Pluma currently supports Iarvel and Pitata boards, with more brands to be added over time. Pluma works in multiple languages, including Arabic, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Vietnamese Online AI recognition features require the use of in-app credits (with some provided on purchase), or you can provide your own API key. Offline AI text recognition is included for free. No yearly subscription or device fee needed for either Pluma is offered for entertainment purposes only.

Screenshots

iDeal4 screens
Pluma4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: iDeal at $24.99 against Pluma's $99.99. iDeal also leads on in-app purchases (none vs 1) and iOS requirement (12.0 vs 17.6). Pluma's advantage is update cadence (weekly vs every 29 months) and ratings volume (9 vs 3). On rating, ads, monetization model 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

iDeal costs $24.99 and Pluma $99.99 up front. Pluma sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. iDeal asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 5.0 for iDeal against 5.0 for Pluma. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 3 and 9 respectively.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

iDeal ships an update every 29 months, Pluma weekly. The most recent releases landed on September 5, 2026 and September 22, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard5 real differences · 5 level
iDeal versus Pluma: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameteriDealPluma
Price$24.99 — better$99.99
Rating5.0 (3 ratings)5.0 (9 ratings)
Positive reviews100.0% of reviews—
Number of ratings39 — better
Update frequencyEvery 29 monthsWeekly — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationPaidPaid
DevicesiPhone, iPod, Apple Watch — betteriPhone, Apple Watch
Requires iOS12.0 — better17.6
Further details — not scored
Size29 MB36 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperMagic Media LtdMarc Kerstein

Customer experience

iDeal

All ratings3 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews1 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

Pluma

All ratings9 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

In-app purchases

None

iDeal

No in-app purchases

1 purchases

Pluma

One-time1
  • 100 Pluma AI Credits$6.99

Questions

Is iDeal free?
iDeal costs $24.99, with no in-app purchases.
Is Pluma free?
Pluma costs $99.99, and also offers in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, iDeal or Pluma?
iDeal and Pluma are both rated 5.0 out of 5 on the App Store, from 3 and 9 ratings respectively.
Do iDeal or Pluma have ads?
Neither iDeal nor Pluma shows ads.
Which is updated more often, iDeal or Pluma?
iDeal ships an update every 29 months, and Pluma weekly. Most recently, iDeal was updated on September 5, 2026 and Pluma on September 22, 2026.

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