Nana’s Level
iPhone app · Free

You don’t have to watch.
She’ll tap you when it’s level.

A level for your phone. Lay it on a shelf or hold it against a picture frame, and it taps you the moment the thing is straight. You’re holding the frame with both hands, or the phone is halfway under a shelf, and you couldn’t see the screen anyway. You feel the tap and you know.

Coming to the App Store

Version one is built and it is not in the shop yet. When Apple lets it through, this page says so first, and the price will be the same as it is today, which is nothing.

See the other apps
Free
and it stays that way
0.2°
how close before she taps you
Nothing
leaves your phone, ever
Edge mode in Nana’s Level. The header reads EDGE, with the line “Hold the phone against it, edge or back.” A single ochre line runs level across a large circle, the reading underneath says 0.0 degrees, and the sentence below it reads “Straight. Hammer away.”
Held against a frame, any way round. There is no mode button, because it works it out itself.
The measuring screen in Nana’s Level with the phone lying flat. A round bubble sits dead centre of the target, the reading underneath says 0.0 degrees, and Nana adds “Level. Go on, set it down.” Side and front both read 0.0 degrees, and a line at the bottom promises a tap when it is level. Hold and Zero buttons sit along the bottom.
One bubble, one number, and the promise printed underneath it.
A step of the calibration wizard. The heading reads “Turn it like a plate on the table”, with instructions not to pick the phone up or stand it on its edge, a small dial showing side plus 2.8 degrees and front plus 2.2 degrees, and a Save now button at the bottom.
Calibration in steps, on a worktop you have no reason to trust.
The whole of it

Nine things, and the first one is the point

Everything below is in version one. There is no paid tier holding half of it back, because there is no paid tier.

She taps you

The phone taps your hand the moment the thing is level, within about two tenths of a degree. That is the whole idea, and it is why the screen can be somewhere you cannot see.

Two modes, and she picks

Lying flat, you get a round bubble and both directions at once. Held against a wall, a frame or a door post, you get a level line instead, and it reads the same whichever of the four ways round you happen to be holding the phone. There is no switch to find.

She tells you about the camera bump

Your phone does not lie flat on its back. The camera sticks out and props it up, on the newer ones by more than two degrees, so face up you are measuring that bump and not the worktop. Lay it screen down instead. The glass is flat, and the tap will find you anyway.

Zero it on anything

You know the windowsill is true? Rest the phone on it and press Zero. From then on she counts from that sill. The correction stays on the measuring screen in plain numbers and one tap clears it, because a level that quietly shifts every reading is worse than one that never offered to.

Calibrate without a level surface

Take a reading on any worktop. Turn the phone on the spot, like a plate on the table. Take a second one. The slope of the worktop changes sides while the sensor’s own error stays put, and that is enough to tell one from the other. You find out how crooked your worktop is while you are at it.

Degrees, percent or millimetres

Degrees for hanging things, percent slope for a path or a gutter, millimetres per metre for anyone who was taught that way. You pick once and she remembers.

Hold a reading

Freeze the number, then slide the phone back out from under the shelf and read it in comfort. The measurement waits for you instead of the other way round.

Day, dusk and night

Three moods, so the screen suits the room you are standing in. She speaks English and Polish, and she is a slightly different person in each.

No account, no network

She collects nothing about you, because she has nowhere to put it. There is no sign-in, no advertising and nothing to buy, and the app has no way of reaching the internet in the first place.

How much to trust her

What this app will not tell you

Free tools are a category built on claims nobody checks. Here is everything Nana’s Level refuses to say, and why.

It is not a measuring instrument The sensor in a phone is a phone sensor. For a picture on the wall or a shelf it is plenty. For a floor screed or a roof, take a proper level, because a mistake there stays for years.
No history and no export She does not keep a log of what you measured and there is nothing to send anywhere. A level answers a question you are holding in your hands right now, and then the question is over.
No widget and no watch app Both would need somewhere to put a reading, and there is nowhere. If either turns out to be a real want rather than a feature list entry, it can be built. Not before.
Nothing to unlock later There is no paid version waiting behind this one and no screen that offers you one. She mentions her other apps once, quietly, after you have used this one five times, and never again after you close it.
iPhone only, and upright only There is no iPad version and no landscape layout. A level you hold in one hand does not need to rotate, and pretending otherwise would be two more layouts to keep honest.
Fresh from the oven

Changelog

Version one is finished and waiting on Apple, so this entry has no date yet. It gets one the day the app reaches the App Store.

1.0Not out yetNew
  • The first one. It measures a flat surface and an edge, and it taps you the moment you get there.
  • The mode looks after itself. Lying flat gives you a bubble and both directions at once; held against something upright gives you a level line that reads the same in all four ways of holding the phone.
  • Zeroing you can see. Set the app to count from any surface you already know is true, with the correction shown in plain numbers and cleared in one tap.
  • Calibration that needs no level surface. Two readings with the phone turned round in between are enough to separate the sensor’s error from the slope of the worktop, and she tells you both.
  • Degrees, percent slope or millimetres per metre. Hold a reading and read it afterwards. Day, dusk and night. English and Polish.
  • No account, no network, no advertising and nothing to buy.
Almost out of the oven

Put the phone down. She’ll do the looking.

Nana’s Level is free, and free is not a trial or a first month. She made a small useful thing and she would like you to have it.

Coming to the App Store See the other apps

Made for iPhone on iOS 18 or later, upright, in English and Polish. It works with the phone offline, and it asks you for no permissions at all.

Made with a wooden spoon.