Ripple Tank vs Pic2Mag
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Ripple Tank
Explore wave phenomena with a realistic ripple tank simulation. Create and save your own experiments to visualize concepts like interference, diffraction, and refraction. Ideal for students and educators seeking an interactive learning tool.
- Wave generation with finger touch
- Demonstrates interference and diffraction
- Visualizes refraction and resonance
- Includes Doppler effect examples
- Create and save custom experiments
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A simulation of a ripple tank, or wave tank. Make waves with your finger, or view examples including such wave phenomena as interference, diffraction (single slit, double slit, etc.), refraction, resonance, and the Doppler effect. Create your own experiment and save it for future reference.
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.
- 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
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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
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: Pic2Mag at Free against Ripple Tank's $5.99. Pic2Mag also leads on rating (5.0 vs 4.4). Ripple Tank's advantage is update cadence (every 7 months vs every 31 months) and ratings volume (7 vs 1). On ads, in-app purchases, device support and iOS requirement 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
Pic2Mag is free to download; Ripple Tank costs $5.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Pic2Mag holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.4. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Ripple Tank has 7 ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two.
Ripple Tank ships an update every 7 months, Pic2Mag every 31 months. The most recent releases landed on October 23, 2026 and October 8, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Ripple Tank | Pic2Mag |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $5.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 4.4 (7 ratings) | 5.0 (1 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 85.7% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 7 — better | 1 |
| Update frequency | Every 7 months — better | Every 31 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Paid | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 7.0 — better | 8.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 2 MB | 108 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Falstad.com | Michael Snyder |
Customer experience
Ripple Tank
Pic2Mag
In-app purchases
Ripple Tank
No in-app purchases
Pic2Mag
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Ripple Tank free?
Is Pic2Mag free?
Which has better reviews, Ripple Tank or Pic2Mag?
Do Ripple Tank or Pic2Mag have ads?
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