Practiko vs Black Hole Simulator
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side โ with what reviewers say about each.
Practiko
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Practiko is an experiential learning based platform catering to the entire spectrum of STEAM learning purely through hands-on activities. and also offers hands-on STEM/STEAM activities through engineering kits and advanced technologies like Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), and 3D printing. The Practiko mobile app enhances experiential learning activities at home. he app supports personalized learning by providing access to interactive content, videos, and assessments.
Black Hole Simulator
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Orbit a supermassive black hole, rendered live by your iPhone's GPU โ then spin it, fall into it, and see it as the Event Horizon Telescope would. This is not a video. Every frame traces light through curved spacetime along exact geodesics โ Schwarzschild's for a still black hole, Kerr's for a spinning one โ so what you see is what general relativity predicts: the accretion disk bent up and over the shadow, the thin photon ring, and, as the hole spins, a shadow that slides sideways and flattens. SPIN IT Turn the spin from zero to 0.998, the most a real black hole can manage. Space is dragged round with it, the disk reaches in toward the horizon, and the shadow takes its famous D shape. DIVE IN Let go and fall. The sky ahead turns blue and bright, the sky behind reddens, and the shadow swallows the view. Your clock and a distant one keep count, and the rate between them climbs without limit โ and at a black hole as big as TON 618 you cross the horizon without feeling a thing. Inside a non-spinning hole the camera follows you nearly to the centre. When it is over, a fall report puts the two clocks side by side and shows what time relativity really costs: falling, the outside barely ages; holding still at a metre from the horizon, an hour of yours is centuries of theirs. SPAGHETTIFY Drop yourself, an asteroid, Earth or the Sun into a black hole and watch the tide pull it apart, in the faller's own frame with the real clocks. A small black hole shreds you far outside its horizon; a huge one like TON 618 lets you cross it whole and tears you apart only inside. SIX REAL BLACK HOLES TON 618, M87*, Sagittarius A*, Cygnus X-1, Gaia BH1 and GW150914 โ each with its real mass, spin, distance and story, and the angle we see it from on Earth. THE TELESCOPE VIEW The same light as the Event Horizon Telescope would see it, at each hole's true size on the sky: M87* and Sagittarius A* as glowing rings, and TON 618, too far away, as a blur. LIGHT PATHS Watch a sheet of light meet the hole: the wavefront bends, slows, and freezes at the horizon. The horizon, ergosphere, light orbits and innermost stable orbit are drawn to scale. READOUTS Distance, time dilation, orbital speed, the tides across your body and the escape speed โ in real units for the black hole on show. JETS Beams of particles fired along the spin axis, powered by the spin itself and brightest where they come toward you. EXPLORE Drag to orbit, pinch to fly closer, double-tap to reset. Three framings โ Orbit, Edge-on and Above โ or find your own angle. Three looks: Realistic, Anime, and Telescope. Turn on the grid to watch space itself dip toward the horizon. Everything else lives in the Explore bay: swipe up from its tab. TUNED FOR YOUR DEVICE Three quality tiers โ Saver, Balanced and Ultra โ each a ceiling: frames come at 30 a second, or 60 on Balanced and Ultra when your phone has room, and the picture draws a little less on its own when it warms up or Low Power Mode is on. The app offers a cooler tier if it gets hot. QUIET BY DESIGN Music, or custom sounds made live from the physics on screen (no recordings) โ your choice in Settings โ that respect your silent switch. Spacecraft models are NASA preview renders; the app is not endorsed by NASA. No account, no sign-in, no subscription. The app is free. Changing the picture quality shows a short ad, and Ultra is unlocked by watching a short video. In the Spaghettify lab, the astronaut, the little helicopter and an asteroid are always free; the spacecraft, Earth and the Sun open for a day after a short video, and an ad plays every few falls. THE MODEL Light follows exact null geodesics of the Schwarzschild and Kerr spacetimes, in units of each hole's mass. Disk colours and brightness and the photon ring are styled for clarity, and the drawn disk reaches a little inside the innermost stable orbit โ a visualisation, not a resolved observation.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is ads: Practiko at none against Black Hole Simulator's shown. Practiko also leads on device support (3 vs 1) and iOS requirement (15.1 vs 26.2). Black Hole Simulator's advantage is update cadence (every 3 weeks vs every 9 months). On price and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price ยท Rating ยท Positive reviews ยท Number of ratings ยท Update frequency ยท Ads ยท In-app purchases ยท Monetization ยท Best chart rank ยท Devices ยท Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Practiko ships an update every 9 months, Black Hole Simulator every 3 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 25, 2026 and October 24, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Practiko | Black Hole Simulator |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Update frequency | Every 9 months | Every 3 weeks โ better |
| Ads | No โ better | Yes |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod โ better | iPhone |
| Requires iOS | 15.1 โ better | 26.2 |
| Further details โ not scored | ||
| Size | 39 MB | 16 MB |
| Age rating | 17+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Sai Sindhuja Ravi | khushnidjon Keldiboev |
In-app purchases
Practiko
No in-app purchases
Black Hole Simulator
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Practiko free?
Is Black Hole Simulator free?
Do Practiko or Black Hole Simulator have ads?
Which is updated more often, Practiko or Black Hole Simulator?
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