Thermals vs BBCBasic
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Thermals
Monitor your device's thermal state and processor activity to diagnose performance issues. Understand why your phone might be running slowly, charging slowly, or have reduced brightness due to overheating. Export data for further analysis with other development tools.
- Displays device thermal state
- Shows active processor count
- Monitors device uptime
- Troubleshoots performance issues
- Helps diagnose slow charging
- Identifies brightness limitations
- Exports raw data for analysis
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Phone running slowly, charging slowly or low brightness? See if your device is overheating using Thermals. Thermals displays your device’s thermal state, as well as how many processors are active on your device and its uptime, as reported by iOS. Thermals helps troubleshoot: • Poor performance — iOS reduces processor speed and potentially disables processors temporarily when the device is hot. • Slow charging — battery charging causes a lot of heat and iOS can limit charging speed to reduce the additional heat that might make a device too hot. • Low maximum brightness — if your device screen stays dark despite being on full brightness, it could be limited by iOS due to heat. • Manufacturing defects — if not all processors are active when the device is cool and not in low power mode. Your device's thermal state is monitored regularly in the background and recorded in the app (if Background App Refresh is enabled). Open the app or tap the widget to record a data point manually. Export the raw data to file for corroboration with Screen Time, Xcode's Instruments, or other development tools. Also an independent Apple Watch app shows the thermal status, active processors and uptime, and thermal history of your watch.
BBCBasic
This app implements the classic BBC BASIC programming language with modern enhancements. It supports advanced graphics, physics, multimedia, and networking, while maintaining compatibility with the original BBC Microcomputer.
- 2D and 3D graphics
- Shader programming
- 2D physics engine
- Stereo music and sound effects
- Video playback
- Networking support
- Accelerometer support
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BBC BASIC is the programming language originally specified and adopted by the British Broadcasting Corporation for its groundbreaking Computer Literacy Project of the early 1980s. This is an advanced, cross-platform, implementation with many enhancements over early versions. As well as extensions to the language it supports anti-aliased 2D graphics, 3D graphics, shader programming and includes a 2D physics engine. Its multimedia capabilities include stereo music, sound effects and video. It supports networking and the accelerometer. Nevertheless it maintains a high degree of compatibility with the BBC Microcomputer, including SOUND, ENVELOPE and MODE 7.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is chart position: Thermals at #127 against BBCBasic's unranked. Thermals also leads on review sentiment (83% vs 75%) and ratings volume (28 vs 8). BBCBasic's advantage is iOS requirement (12.0 vs 18.6). On price, rating, update cadence and ads 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
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.5 for Thermals against 4.4 for BBCBasic. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 28 and 8 respectively. Written reviews are what separate them: 83% of Thermals's written reviews are positive against 75% of BBCBasic's.
Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly every 3 months. The most recent releases landed on September 22, 2026 and September 6, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Thermals | BBCBasic |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.5 (28 ratings) — better | 4.4 (8 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 83.3% of reviews — better | 75.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 28 — better | 8 |
| Update frequency | Every 3 months | Every 3 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Best chart rank | #127 — better | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 18.6 | 12.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 3 MB | 55 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | George Garside | Richard Russell |
Customer experience
Thermals
BBCBasic
In-app purchases
Thermals
No in-app purchases
BBCBasic
No in-app purchases









