The iPhone 5s includes a gyroscope, accelerometer and compass, meaning it can variously be used as a spirit level, direction finder and fitness tracker. However, testing suggests that the accuracy of its measurements is poor — so don’t use the spirit level app if you’re trying to fix a shelf.
Following widespread online reports of inaccurate data from the iPhone 5s, Gizmodo ran its own tests, comparing the performance of the device to both real-world measuring tools and to the iPhone 5, which includes much of the same hardware. In every case, the iPhone 5s produced dubious and inaccurate data. As well as messing up real-world applications, that’s potentially very bad news for gamers, since many iOS games rely on using the gyroscope and accelerometer to read user input.
The most likely explanation would appear to be improper calibration during the manufacturing process, which means that the issue can’t necessarily be fixed purely through an iOS update. Hit the post for full details of the testing.
Comments
2 responses to “Why You Shouldn’t Trust Motion Sensing Data From The iPhone 5s”
It’s not like that , I’ve tried it before when you sometimes click it , it locks the spirit level to the position it is as 0. So when then you put it on a flat surface it shows up inaccurate . You would just need to adjust it to make it accurate after all.
Using Clinometer (an old App for levels) the phone was accurate after calibration, but certainly not before. Seems to be calibration — not hardware.