iPad App Review | DIY Toolbox Home Improvement Appliances

January 10th, 2011 by Lee Jones

iPad App Review | DIY Toolbox

We were recently contacted by the developer of a new iPad app designed to “get things done”. The DIY Toolbox is a utility application that includes a measurement converter, various calculators and a to do list. After spending some time using the app, here’s what we thought.

DIY Toolbox for iPad

Note: choice of units can be set in the preferences.

Convert The Convert tab can change feet into meters, inches into millimeters, and yards into feet. The large calculator-esque buttons make it easy to enter numbers and clear fields. These are common conversions but I’d like to see more. There’s a lot of screen real-estate on a iPad, and apps should take advantage. Entering values is a little kludgy too. For instance, converting 8′, 3″ into metric means entering 8.25 into the Feet box rather than entering feet and inches separately.

Inside The Inside tab houses the Paint, Wallpaper and Flooring subsections. Each contains a similar calculator for determining the amount of material required to complete a project. While users need extra material for waste, the calculators can account for additional coats of paint, windows and doors. These tools can also be applied to other projects like planning a spray foam insulation job.

Outside The Outside tab has Gravel and Concrete subsections. Gravel is computed as cubic yards and tons, while concrete is divided even further by truck, bag or mix. This is very helpful as each method has different outputs. For instance, mixing concrete by hand, the calculator will output the number of bags, and cubic yards of sand and gravel necessary.

Things To Do The Things To Do list is very similar to the standard Notes app. You create new notes and jot down your thoughts. Notes can be saved and copied into the body of an email with the press of a button. I’d like to see other tabs have a Create Note button that would make a new note, saving the current calculation. Otherwise, you have to remember the results and write it down later.

DIY Toolbox App

The DIY Toolbox app can be found in iTunes for $2.99. It requires an iPad with iOS 3.2 or higher. Check out the iTunes preview for more details. If you’d like to win the app for free, be one of the first 5 people to email me with the subject line “DIY Toolbox for me please!”.

What do you think? Can you recommend any handy iPad apps?

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