Great for fountain pen and watch guy duties

Im a "fountain pen guy," (HDoug at The Fountain Pen Network) and was looking for something that might replace the 2x (or is it 3x) glass lens that I dont always have on me. I use it to look at pen nibs (the metal part of a fountain pen that carries the ink and touches the paper) because thats where subtleties of shape influence the character of the writing. Its also the metal nibs where manufacturers choose to engrave with their trademark logos. Arrows, Pelikans, mountains, anchors and all sorts of things in fine lines engraved into gold and steel, for the observant with a decent magnifier. I also have to confess into not being able to read the print on medication labels, and it seems to me there might be some important information in that tedious prose.

Well, to get to the point, this app really exceeds the above mentioned requirements. I would sometimes use the iPhones camera app and try zooming in to create my own digital magnifier, and I couldnt imagine how an app that basically did the same thing could be any better. But better it is, and much much better. I dont know how, but it works exactly as a magnifier and throws in some very useful digital tricks: Tap the screen and freeze the image. You can even zoom into the image in this mode. You can adjust the flash light to get the level of illumination you want, and you can even save the image to your Photo app.

It does get grainy at high magnification, but thats only at the deep end of the zoom scale.

I have also found it useful for a number of other things I hadnt anticipated. Im writing this review after using the app to look at the tiny letters engraved into a couple of my watches to find the movement number so I could look up some information about them. From where Im sitting, both my 3x magnifier and 10x Belomo are out of reach. But my iPhone is always practically attached to my body.

So it indeed has replaced my 3x lens, and is even threatening my 10X Belomo. Now thats a nice piece of glass, but you cant take photos through it very easily, can you?

honolulu dougo! about Magnifying Glass w/ Light Pro, v3.4