Comparison

Chaos Lab vs Pic2Mag

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

Head to head
About

Chaos Lab

Explore the beauty of chaos through interactive simulations of mathematical objects, chemical reactions, and celestial mechanics. Manipulate parameters with device tilt and touch to create stunning visual art and understand complex scientific principles.

Highlights
  • Interactive strange attractors
  • Chemical oscillator simulations
  • 3-body chaos simulation
  • Julian fractal morphing
  • Real-time parameter control
  • Multiple attractors included
Features
Read full description

Chaos Lab puts the beauty of chaos in your hands. With a tilt of your device, you control the parameters of beautiful mathematical objects called strange attractors, the reaction rates of a chemical oscillator, the position of two stars in a 3-body chaos simulation, and the shape of the Julian fractal. Now you can be an experimentalist and an artist. Using real-time integration of over 6,000 points for the attractors whose parameters are tied to your motion, over 7,000 data points for a fractal which morphs at your command, ten "asteroids" demonstrating chaotic sensitivity to initial conditions in a jittering twin-star system where the stars move with your tilt (can you keep them from escaping?), and a real-time BZ-reaction simulation which you control by both tilt and touch, this is chaos as you've never seen it before. Chaos Lab comes loaded with four of the most stunning attractors in chaos theory. The Rössler and Lorenz attractors are well known, but the Thomas and Newton-Leipnik attractors are relatively new and quite amazing! This work has been supported in part by grant PHY-0754081 from the U.S. National Science Foundation, the Nonlinear Dynamics Research Group at Drexel University (directed by Dr. Robert Gilmore), and the Department of Physics at Drexel University. Please note, some of these experiments will run slower on the older models of iPhones and iPod touch devices. Find the beauty in the chaos!

About

Pic2Mag

Visualize magnetic and electric fields by drawing magnets or charges. This educational tool helps students understand physics concepts by displaying field lines and voltage potentials. It offers a free, ad-free learning experience for iOS devices.

Highlights
  • Draw magnets to visualize magnetic fields
  • Draw charges to visualize electric fields
  • Magnetostatic and Electrostatic modes
  • Field line and voltage potential plotting
  • Caches results for faster processing
  • Ad-free learning experience
Features
Read full description

The user draws the magnets and the Pic2Mag program draws the magnetic fields. The Field Calculator program now has a Magnetostatic mode, and an Electrostatic mode to plot either magnetic fields or electric fields. The program designed to help students learn Magnetic fields and Electric fields. You can draw magnets and look at the magnetic field, or you can draw electric charges and look at the electric voltage field. The best free magnetic science program you can download! No advertisements, it's just all app. The app can process most images in just a few minutes. The app caches it's results so the more that you use it, the faster the program processes images. Red pixels represent magnets with a North pole surface facing the observer, and Blue pixels represent magnets with a South pole surface facing the observer. Pink pixels represent positive electric charges, and Dark Purple pixels represent negative electric charges

Screenshots

Chaos Lab4 screens
Pic2Mag4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is update cadence: Chaos Lab at every 3 days against Pic2Mag's every 31 months. Chaos Lab also leads on ratings volume (8 vs 1). Pic2Mag's advantage is iOS requirement (8.0 vs 18.0). On price, rating, 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.9 for Chaos Lab against 5.0 for Pic2Mag. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Chaos Lab has 8 ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Chaos Lab ships an update every 3 days, Pic2Mag every 31 months. The most recent releases landed on October 23, 2026 and October 8, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard3 real differences · 7 level
Chaos Lab versus Pic2Mag: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterChaos LabPic2Mag
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.9 (8 ratings)5.0 (1 ratings) — better
Positive reviews68.8% of reviews—
Number of ratings8 — better1
Update frequencyEvery 3 days — betterEvery 31 months
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFreeFree
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad, iPod — better
Requires iOS18.08.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size7 MB108 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperTimothy D. JonesMichael Snyder

Customer experience

Chaos Lab

All ratings7 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews16 reviews
Positive68.8%
Neutral12.5%
Negative18.8%

Pic2Mag

All ratings1 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

In-app purchases

None

Chaos Lab

No in-app purchases

None

Pic2Mag

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Chaos Lab free?
Chaos Lab is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Pic2Mag free?
Pic2Mag is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Chaos Lab or Pic2Mag?
Pic2Mag is rated higher. Chaos Lab averages 4.9 out of 5 from 8 ratings, while Pic2Mag averages 5.0 from 1 ratings.
Do Chaos Lab or Pic2Mag have ads?
Neither Chaos Lab nor Pic2Mag shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Chaos Lab or Pic2Mag?
Chaos Lab ships an update every 3 days, and Pic2Mag every 31 months. Most recently, Chaos Lab was updated on October 23, 2026 and Pic2Mag on October 8, 2026.

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