Now You Can Use Your iPhone as a Weighing Scale

Oct 29, 2015 11:35 AM EDT

You can do a lot of things with your iPhone: take pictures with it, video conference with it, learn with it, sing with it, and make artwork with it. Very soon you can weigh things on it, The Daily Mail reports.

Tech reports have released the interesting tidbit that you can turn your iPhone 6s unit into a digital scale. Apparently this is made possible through an interesting app called Gravity.

A phone that can be used to weigh small objects thanks to its, and now an app promises to add the same feature to the iPhone 6s.

Gravity uses the handset's pressure-sensitive screen to create a scale on the screen. The 3D Touch will let you weigh various small things like powders, beans, beads and the like. It was created by design engineer Ryan McLeod from California. According to him, the app can be calibrated by putting quarter coins on a spoon. Objects up to 0.8lbs can now be weighed on your handset.

But according to The Verge this is one function that Apple frowns upon. McLeod's team submitted a video showing the app in action with an iPhone but were strictly told off that "the concept of a scale app was not appropriate for the App Store."

It can be understandably assumed that Apple thinks that few users would be excited about putting foreign objects of various weights on an iPhone and potentially break, scratch or damage the screen. The report also ventures that such an app might be used by drug users and dealers to weigh drugs.

Of this response, the engineer says: "We have a strong respect for the subjective process Apple uses to maintain a selection of high-quality apps. But [we] do hope for a day when Gravity can be one of the hand-picked, who-knew-a-phone-could-do-that-apps anyone can download on the App Store and have in their pocket."

Apple's 3D Touch is available on the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus. For the display to note very minute changes in pressure between the cover and the backlight, capacitive sensors are built into the screen.

The measurements are combined with the touch sensor and accelerometer to make a pressure response that will prove to be exact.

During the 2015 IFA conference in Berlin, Huawei announced its Mate S handset likewise had pressure pads on the screen. It could turn into a digital scale - and was promptly used to weigh an orange at the event.

This instance was apparently the inspiration that caused the Gravity makers to create a similar app for the iPhone.