iSeismometer vs Stereonet Mobile
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
iSeismometer
Transform your iPhone into a sensitive seismometer to detect and visualize vibrations. Explore its educational and data-collecting capabilities for fun or serious applications.
- Converts iPhone to seismometer
- Detects and visualizes vibrations
- Data collecting capabilities
- Educational use
- Adjustable frequency settings
- Re-track previous data
- X-Y-Z illustrated graphs
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iSeismometer turns your iPhone or iPad into a seismograph. Set it on a table, tap the desk, and watch the ground move. You will be surprised how sensitive your phone is. It has been doing that since the App Store opened in 2008, when it reached #1 in Education in Japan, Austria, Finland, and Greece. Version 1.7 is a complete rebuild: faster, clearer, and finally a real instrument. LIVE SEISMOGRAPH • Three axes at up to 100 samples per second, drawn like a strip-chart recorder • Scroll back through up to an hour of history while it keeps recording • Gravity filter with a real corner frequency, so slow tilt disappears and earthquakes stay • Live spectrum: see the frequency of footsteps, a washing machine, or a passing truck at a glance • Dark mode and a full iPad layout EVENT DETECTION • A seismologist's STA/LTA trigger flags every tremor with its peak acceleration, duration, and dominant frequency • Three sensitivity levels, from "only real shakes" to "every footstep" • Events are shaded on the traces and listed so you can jump straight to them RECORDINGS • Every session is saved automatically as compact raw data, split into hourly files • Browse by day, open any recording, scrub to its events, and see its spectrum • Export CSV, or pick up the raw files in the Files app and in Finder • Keep them for a day, a week, a month, or forever WAS THAT AN EARTHQUAKE? • Live USGS feed on a globe, filtered by time window and magnitude • Tap a quake for its depth, time, and the official USGS page STREAM TO YOUR MAC • Open iSeismometer on a Mac on the same Wi-Fi and your phone finds it by itself • The Mac shows every device streaming to it side by side, with its own recordings and event detection • Reconnects on its own after the screen locks, the network drops, or the Mac restarts Made for fun and for learning. A phone carries a MEMS accelerometer, not a broadband seismometer, so it feels footsteps and trucks far better than distant earthquakes. Put it on a solid floor, plug it in, keep the screen awake, and you have a home seismic station. iSeismometer is not a substitute for official earthquake early warnings or emergency alerts. Questions and ideas: info@objectgraph.com "This is a novelty app but one that also helps you learn something new... one of those things that is very captivating once you've looked at it once." — The Independent Guide to the iPhone 3GS
Stereonet Mobile
This app assists geologists in collecting, visualizing, and analyzing geological orientation data. It offers automatic data entry using device sensors and augmented reality, manual input options, and various plotting and calculation tools for geological features.
- Automatic data entry via device orientation
- Augmented reality for strike and dip measurement
- Manual data entry via stereonet or text fields
- Plotting of lines and planes with user-defined types
- Basic geological calculations (rotations, angles, slope stability)
- Plotting of mean vectors, rose diagrams, and contour lines
- View plots from any orientation
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Stereonet Mobile is designed to help you collect, visualize, and analyze geological orientation data. It is a companion to my Stereonet program for desktop computers. As such I have tried to incorporate the basic functionality of that program, taking into account the inherent limitations of mobile devices. Some of the basic tasks that one can perform with Stereonet Mobile include: • Provide automatic data entry as a geologist's compass by reading the iOS device orientation and converting it to strike and dip of planes and/or trend and plunge of lines. It is the only geology compass app that can use augmented reality to record the strike and dip of planes using the sighting method and the device camera. • Provide manual data entry via either tapping and dragging on the stereonet or by typing values into text fields • Plot lines and planes, which can be tagged using one of as many user defined data types (e.g., bedding, cleavage, slickensides, etc.) as you want • Carry out basic calculations such as: rotations about any axis, planes from poles or poles from planes, measure angles between lines and between planes, and basic slope stability calculations • Plot mean vectors, cylindrical best fits, rose diagrams, and contour lines. • View the plots from any orientation, not just looking straight down into the lower hemisphere • See the location of a datum on a map or satellite image (if you have an internet connection) • Show realtime changes to the stereonet projection to help students understand the geometry of the device better • Provide basic input and output of data using standard iOS conventions • Works on iPhones or iPads. The program will work on iPods or iPads lacking a cellular data connection but those devices have fewer sensors and thus cannot be used in automatic data collection mode.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Stereonet Mobile at 4.5 against iSeismometer's 3.6. Stereonet Mobile also leads on update cadence (monthly vs every 7 months). iSeismometer's advantage is ratings volume (172 vs 13). On price, review sentiment, ads and in-app purchases 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.
Stereonet Mobile holds the better App Store score, 4.5 against 3.6. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: iSeismometer has 172 ratings behind it against 13, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 76% of iSeismometer's written reviews are positive against 73% of Stereonet Mobile's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.
iSeismometer ships an update every 7 months, Stereonet Mobile monthly. The most recent releases landed on October 23, 2026 and October 12, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | iSeismometer | Stereonet Mobile |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 3.6 (172 ratings) | 4.5 (13 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 76.5% of reviews — better | 72.7% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 172 — better | 13 |
| Update frequency | Every 7 months | Monthly — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Mac | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 16.0 | 15.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 3 MB | 29 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | ObjectGraph LLC | Richard Allmendinger |
Customer experience
iSeismometer
Stereonet Mobile
Bugs and requests
iSeismometer
Reported bugs
3 issues- Buttons/controls not working on newer iOS versions
- Keyboard not appearing in text input fields
- Inconsistent performance across device models
Requested features
6 requests- Add sensitivity control
- Implement zero control for reference plane
- Increase recording time
- Improve UI/UX (e.g. color coding, scrolling, chart speed control)
- Implement Richter scale or other measurement units
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- Add data export/sharing options (e.g. email, save to file)
Stereonet Mobile
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
iSeismometer
No in-app purchases
Stereonet Mobile
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is iSeismometer free?
Is Stereonet Mobile free?
Which has better reviews, iSeismometer or Stereonet Mobile?
Do iSeismometer or Stereonet Mobile have ads?
Which is updated more often, iSeismometer or Stereonet Mobile?
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