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In 'Showcase' reviews, the reviewer is the developer. No claim of objectivity is made, but it’s a chance for the developer to show off his/her app. Here, Daniel Alm discusses the new visualization package, PocketCAS.

Author: Daniel Alm
Position: Developer
Affiliation: Thomas Osthege and Daniel Alm Software

On the occasion of its recent 2.0 release, I'd like to present my application PocketCAS, a computer algebra system (CAS) for the iPhone and iPod touch, in this article.

PocketCAS is a very advanced computer algebra system which turns your iPhone into a device capable of calculating complicated mathematical problems in mere seconds. It will make your everyday work as a scientist a lot easier. Apart from calculating symbolic derivatives and taylor series expansions as well as plotting cartesian and polar functions, PocketCAS will compute symbolic integrals, simplify expressions and do advanced linear algebra.

The integrated function plotter makes it easy to visualize formulas. You can graph cartesian as well as polar functions without having to worry about plot settings.

The software has been designed to be as easy to use as possible. PocketCAS ships with ten tutorials to introduce you to many of its features, and a categorized function reference is always just a tap of a finger away. It contains examples and syntax information for almost every of the more than 500 available functions.

Special care has been taken in order to allow you to input text quickly. When working with a CAS, there's a lot of different functions you might want to enter (a lot more than on a scientific calculator), but the iPhone's touchscreen is not very big and you want to have as much space as possible for your calculations. PocketCAS introduces a special mathematical keyboard with different sections, where every function you need frequently in a CAS is at most two taps away! In addition to that, the mathematical keyboard is smarter than a regular one. For example, when tapping a functions' key, it will be entered including braces, with the cursor in between. If you had selected text prior to pressing a function key, the previously selected text will be used as the argument for the function you just entered. But innovation doesn't stop here. To obtain inverse and hyperbolic trigonometric functions, you just enter cos() as regular, then select 'cos' with two taps, and press the '^(-1)' or 'hyp' key.

Entering large matrices by hand can be a huge pain. Not so with PocketCAS! It has a visual matrix editor to aid you in inputting matrices.

To help you get an overview over the vast number of functions PocketCAS has to offer, it provides you with a list of all available functions. Functions also are categorized into different mathematical topics for easier navigation. In case you still can't find the proper function, there's a search bar available as well!

PocketCAS also makes it easy to compose physical functions. Built-in constants and physical units allow you to enter a formula from your textbook without having to substitute constants manually.

For many uses, the free version PocketCAS lite might already be sufficient. It already serves as a great scientific calculator and allows you to plot one function at a time. PocketCAS pro adds more sophisticated CAS functions like symbolic integration and advanced linear algebra and also lets you plot multiple functions at once.

Please visit PocketCAS lite (iTunes Link) and PocketCAS pro (iTunes Link) in the App Store and try them out yourself. For more detailed information, please have a look at the PocketCAS homepage.