Back when I was taking math classes, the bane of my existence was always the one homework question that I couldn’t figure out, despite my best efforts. For whatever reason, I got tangled up in some fraction or calculation that I missed, eating up a massive chunk of my time if I wasn’t careful.
Enter PhotoMath, a new app that offers people an easy way to figure out a math problem by just holding their iPhone or Windows Phone handset over the offending equation. Once users open the app, they can hover the camera over a typed out math problem. After that, PhotoMath will analyze the equation and spit out an answer. Here’s a video that shows how it works:
At first glance, it seems like the perfect tool for cheaters, but the solving functions aren’t anything particularly new. Students equipped with a TI–89 graphing calculator could figure out results in a similarly portable manner, and WolframAlpha has shown its work for quite some time.
Educators who are really worried their pupils will be using PhotoMath to cheat have a couple of very easy fixes, beyond banning the use of smartphones on exam day. First, the app is completely stymied by anything that isn’t written out as a mathematical expression. Want to ruin PhotoMath? Write a word problem.
Second – and this is the app’s biggest drawback – it can’t handle handwritten text. Obviously, this is thanks in part to people like me who have atrocious handwriting, but even the neatest printing wasn’t able to trick PhotoMath into working its magic. People who are hoping that they’ll be able to take an equation they come up with and get it easily digetsted would be better served by plugging it into WolframAlpha.
Listen to this week’s segment below, or via this MP3 file.
In a similar vein, the app occasionally missed small details in the text (like a leading negative sign) that can cause large problems for figuring out a solution. It’s worthwhile checking the app’s input, just to make sure that it’s not accidentally returning a bad result.
Whether or not you like PhotoMath is probably going to be a function of how many algebra textbooks you interact with on a regular basis. It’s a cool app, but it’s basically a one-trick pony. Still, this is a great app for people who want to easily solve basic math problems without having to think too much.
Photomath is available for free on the iOS App Store and Windows Phone Store.
