Lumin App
Lumin has been out for awhile but I only recently discovered how useful it can be.
Lumin is an electronic magnifying glass that uses the iPhone camera. I've used it a couple of times when I needed a close look at something while not at home. When I am at home, I have a jewelers loupe a retina-quality display.1
Here's the tip of my Adonit Jot snapped with Lumin.
A couple of weeks ago, my daughter was playing with a reflector rod used to mark my drive way. It helps the snow plows know exactly where they can do the most damage to my yard. Little did I know, the rods are made out of fiberglass. My daughter ended up with several fiberglass splinters in her hand and I ended up being a jerk.
The jewelers loupe was useless for finding them. I was running out of options to demonstrate my super-human daddy skills. I grabbed my iPhone and opened Lumin. It was worth a shot. It worked, but not just becuase of the magnification.
The iPhone camera picked up the light reflecting off of the splinters and showed them as tiny bright-white dots in the image.2 I'm guessing this is an artifact of the sensor technology, but I'll leave that for a Dr. Drang post.
I could not remove the splinters with tweezers, but Daddy's utility belt always has the right tools. Gorilla tape to the rescue.
I'm back on my temporary pedestal.