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Conway's Life Lab

Play · inspect · understand

Conway's Life Lab is a hands-on cellular-automata playground for iPhone and iPad. Draw on a large zoomable board, load well-known patterns, and run the classic B3/S23 Game of Life. Open the optional Lab to inspect a cell's neighborhood, predict its next state, rewind recent generations, compare boundaries, and try related Life-like rules.

Requirements

Frequently asked

How do I move around the board? Choose Navigate, then drag to pan and pinch with two fingers to zoom. The view keeps the board within reach.

How do I add or remove cells? Choose Draw and drag across the board. You can also tap individual cells. Use Patterns to load gliders, oscillators, spaceships, methuselahs, and other popular starting arrangements.

How do I learn why a cell changes? Choose Inspect and tap a cell. The neighborhood card shows its eight neighbors, current state, and prediction. Step once to compare your prediction with the highlighted birth, survival, or death.

How do I rewind? Open Lab, then use Recent Generations. Drag the history slider or use Previous and Next. While viewing history, editing is locked; tap Latest to return to the current generation.

What do B3/S23 and Toroidal mean? B3 means a dead cell is born with exactly three live neighbors. S23 means a live cell survives with two or three. Toroidal boundaries connect opposite edges, as if the board wrapped around in both directions. Both are Conway's standard defaults.

Does the app save my board? Not automatically. The current board and recent history live only in memory and reset when the app is relaunched. Use Save / Load Patterns to keep anything you want to return to; saved patterns persist on your device until you delete them. The built-in pattern library is always available.

Can I use patterns from elsewhere? Yes. Save / Load Patterns imports standard .rle files or pasted RLE text, and shares your board or any gallery pattern back out as an .rle file. Imports must be binary Life-like B/S rules that fit the board; malformed or oversized patterns are rejected rather than silently cropped.

What is AI Pattern Studio? In version 1.2 and later, AI Create turns a description you type into a best-effort Life-like rule and starting pattern. Each generation is a separate In-App Purchase, and the result is saved to Your Patterns so you can load, rename, export, or delete it. Results are interpretations, not exact animations. If a generation is paid for but fails to arrive, the app offers to complete it again at no additional charge. Every other feature works without buying anything.

Can I turn sounds off? Yes. Tap the speaker button in the main controls. Sounds are simple cues synthesized on your device.

Contact

Bugs, questions, or ideas: agentic.AI.appliance@gmail.com

Privacy

Privacy policy — no accounts, analytics, advertising, or tracking. The only feature that sends anything off your device is the optional AI Pattern Studio.