PowerBoard

System Monitor for iPhone and iPad

 

powerBoard-Icon

Apple App Store

PowerBoard is the ultimate instrument for system analysis and diagnosis on the iPhone and iPad

PowerBoard monitors system activity and resource usage over time. The app is the perfect assistant for troubleshooting issues with memory use, processor load, performance, or unexpected system behavior.

OS information and data is presented in a clearly structured way. Key data points can be identified at a glance.

PowerBoard is a solid handcrafted app for reliable system inspection. The technical information is presented in a transparent and visually pleasing way. Graphs, bars, and charts display complex information in a comprehensive fashion.

The app supports portrait and landcape orientation on the iPhone and on the iPad and is backward compatible down to iOS 6.

 

= PowerBoard presents four sections for system introspection =

IDMain characteristics of the device
MemoryUtilization of memory resources
DashboardVarious system characteristics

 

ID id

The ID section displays main information about the device and the currently installed software. It displays the BootTime and the Uptime.

The displayed IP address is the internal IP address of the device. While the IP address is only displayed with an active Internet connection, the MAC network interface address is displayed independently of an active Internet connection.

When tapping on the UDID field, a menu pops up to allow sharing of the UDID via copy-paste or email.

On the bottom of the ID view the accelerometer data is visualized.

On the iPhone the background image depicts the inner machinery of an iPhone 3G. On the iPad the picture displays the large battery and the chipset of the iPad (1st generation).

RAM memory amount is calculated based on system information.

 

Memory memory

The Memory section displays file storage memory and RAM memory. File storage memory information is delivered via NSFileManager's attributesOfFileSystemForPath by passing in the bundle path of the application. Total size equates to NSFileSystemSize while free size equates to NSFileSystemFreeSize.

The RAM memory is reported according to the vm_statistics of Mach's kernel host_statistics() call. To allow visual comparison of statistics over time historical data is plotted at the bottom of the view.

Processor Activity tracks the workload of the processor cores. High processor activity is one of the most prominent causes for battery drain.

Swap Space displays the currently used virtual memory. Paged-in memory can be as much as several GBs. The values do not change dramatically over short periods of time. Therefore a horizontal slider can be used to compare the values over time. Each second a value is sampled and stored with the historical records. A horizontal slider allows to go back in time in steps of seconds.

 
Dashboard test

The Dashboard view displays various system characteristics. Performance tests can be triggered, and system resources can be inspected. The Storage test performs writing and reading operations. Data throughput and access speed of the persistent store can be checked with these operations. Reading operations are performed without cache optimization.

The CPU view runs a fixed set of CPU intensive operations as a performance test.

The execution time can be used as a comparative measurement. Different devices can be compared against each others, or the performance of a single device can be compared over time and under specific conditions.

On the Fonts view the different looks of the currently installed font faces can be inspected.

 

An additional log view is presented only on systems < iOS 9.0. The log tab has been removed with iOS 9 because "rootless" security does not permit access to the system log.

A processes view is also only presented on systems < iOS 9.0. On iOS 9 the system function sysctl() cannot be used anymore to retrieve the list of running processes.


Heiko Wichmann

Support and Feature Requests
Email:support

Heiko Wichmann
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