Comparison

Touch Waves vs Periodic

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

Head to head
About

Touch Waves

Explore wave physics with interactive animations and detailed explanations. This app covers vibrations, waves on strings, acoustics, and optics, making complex concepts visual and understandable for students and educators.

Highlights
  • Wave physics concepts
  • Interactive animations (2D & 3D)
  • Basic equations
  • Classroom projection support
  • Covers vibration, acoustics, optics
  • Detailed subject list
Features
Read full description

Touch Waves is an educational application helpful for a high-school or university course of wave physics. It contains not only a memorandum of the basic equations, but it also contains approximately thirty animations (some in 3D) illustrating the various concepts of wave physics. More than 70 screens of wave physics! For teachers !! Connect your iPad to a video projector and show the animations to your students in classroom. List of covered subjects: Vibration: Harmonic oscillator, damped oscillator, driven oscillator. Wave on strings: Introduction, reflection and transmission, standing waves. Acoustics: Introduction, reflection and transmission, Doppler effect. Optics: Geometric optics, wave optics, polarization, Jones formulation of polarization, reflection and transmission, interference, diffraction, Doppler-Fizeau effect. Each section contains at least one animation. List of animations: Motion of harmonic oscillator, Motion of damped oscillator, Motion of driven oscillator, Progressive transversal wave, Reflection and transmission on string, Standing waves on string, Progressive longitudinal wave, Beating wave, Acoustic frequency, Acoustic Spectrometer, Acoustic Doppler effect, Snell-Descartes’ law, Law of spherical interface, Law of thin lens, Law of thick lens, Law of spherical mirror, Geometric aberration, Chromatic aberration, Visible spectrum, Electromagnetic wave in 3D, Electromagnetic spectrum, Absorption and emission of photon, Types of polarization, Types of polarization in 3D, Fresnel’s coefficients, Reflection and transmission in 3D, Degree of polarization in reflection, Interference in 3D, Young's interferometer, Michelson's interferometer, Fabry-Pérot interferometer, Diffraction by rectangular aperture, Diffraction by circular aperture.

About

Periodic

Features
Read full description

The PeriodicTableElements is an elegant app that is interactive and fun. Easy to use, easy to understand, simple and effective. It shows the periodic table of elements in variety of ways 1) Classic grid with name that is color coded. You can configure it to look however you like. 2) Visually appealing electron distribution. 3) Visually appealing Lewis dot structure. 4) List that can be sorted based on different element properties like group, period, category etc. These awesome periodic tables can be shared by simple double click anywhere on the table. It is possible to copy the periodic table diagrams as high quality SVG xml. Drag your finger on the periodic table canvas to update elements automatically or tap on an element to see more details. Tap on an element and all the rest of the related elements are highlighted. Details of a selected element is shown in a beautifully drawn animated element. Tap on the animated element and you will see more details that can also be shared. Tapping on the list element will navigate you to a page that shows details of the element. It automatically saves your hard work locally on your device so you can come back and pick up from where you left off as your great effort will not be lost. This is a perfect app if you are a student learning chemistry. This is an app for all student groups. From high school to college to university students. Be creative. Enjoy the app!

Screenshots

Touch Waves4 screens
Periodic4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is update cadence: Periodic at every 5 weeks against Touch Waves's every 5 months. Periodic also leads on price ($1.99 vs $3.99) and iOS requirement (15.1 vs 26.0). On 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Touch Waves costs $3.99 and Periodic $1.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Touch Waves ships an update every 5 months, Periodic every 5 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 13, 2026 and October 11, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard3 real differences · 7 level
Touch Waves versus Periodic: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterTouch WavesPeriodic
Price$3.99$1.99 — better
Rating3.0 (2 ratings) — better—
Positive reviews63.2% of reviews—
Number of ratings2 — better—
Update frequencyEvery 5 monthsEvery 5 weeks — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationPaid—
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad, iPod — better
Requires iOS26.015.1 — better
Further details — not scored
Size49 MB31 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperXavier DaxheletOm Prakash Chapagain

In-app purchases

None

Touch Waves

No in-app purchases

None

Periodic

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Touch Waves free?
Touch Waves costs $3.99, with no in-app purchases.
Is Periodic free?
Periodic costs $1.99, with no in-app purchases.
Do Touch Waves or Periodic have ads?
Neither Touch Waves nor Periodic shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Touch Waves or Periodic?
Touch Waves ships an update every 5 months, and Periodic every 5 weeks. Most recently, Touch Waves was updated on October 13, 2026 and Periodic on October 11, 2026.

Other comparisons