iPhone Calculator does not compute
I admit: I really haven’t gotten much out of the iPhone’s Calculator app, but it’s comforting to know it’s there. Or at least, it was until I started playing around with the other day and discovered a bug the size of Mothra.
The Calculator can display up to nine digits at a time, but sometimes it’s smarter than others. Try this little experiment: enter “999999999” (that’s nine 9s, the biggest number you can input). Now divide by two. The correct answer should be 499,999,999.5. Unfortunately, since the Calculator only displays nine digits, you end up losing the number after decimal point (the decimal point itself, you’ll notice, is displayed). It’s still there, actually—it’s just hidden off the screen. If you keep dividing by two, it’ll eventually show up once it fits within the nine digit window.
Okay, I may have exaggerated when I said it was monstrous in proportions, but it is a bit glaring. And here’s a bonus tidbit: try the same trick in OS X’s Calculator Dashboard widget, which also maxes out at nine digits. There’s no display problem there; rather, the calculator widget rounds up, giving you an answer of 500,000,000. OS X’s full-fledged Calculator app gives you the correct answer, though.
Either way, chalk another up for iPhone 1.0.2.
Category: Musings
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Comments (9)
What the calculator desperately needs is a "CE" key . It's just too easy to make a mistake, and the "C" key clears out everything.
Posted by corey | August 1, 2007 3:43 PM
Yeah, and it can't do percentages too.
Back to pen and paper to figure that tip!
Posted by edg | August 1, 2007 3:53 PM
Neh. Interesting yeah. Mind-boggling no. First if your running digits 9 or more you're probably not using a standard calculator. Second, Apples Calculator widget suffers the same "issue".
They should reduce the font to fit it in as many characters as their actual calculator app.
Posted by Michael Kleinpaste | August 1, 2007 4:12 PM
edg: To figure a tip, just multiply the amount of your bill by 0.15.
15% tip on $50: 50 * 0.15 = 7.5 ($7.50).
You don't need a % key to figure this out.
For the total ($50 plus tip), multiply by 1.15 instead.
$50 * 1.15 = $57.5
Posted by Mike | August 2, 2007 9:47 AM
edg:
You're just having a laugh, right? Please tell me that you know how to figure percentages without having the little % button to do it for you. Otherwise, our species is in worse shape than I thought.
Posted by Mark | August 2, 2007 10:28 AM
The calculator on the iPhone was the app or lack of, that made my decision to wait for v2 of the iPhone. I work in the Real estate world and need a financial calculator to figure loan payments and amortize payment schedules. I can do this relatively easy with my Treo Calculator, but the iPhone does not even offer advanced settings for their calculator. So I'm out of luck. Hope they fix this and a lot of other things with their next version.
I would really like to spend some money with Apple, Inc. And Jobs was right, I hate my Treo.
M
Posted by Marty | August 2, 2007 10:39 AM
My wife is a Real Estate Agent.
You can just use iPhone'sSafari browser surf over to a mirad of financial calcs on the web to do much better than an embedded app. You have to try it to believe it.
She's got a Treo 700p Palm OS. She hates it, waiting to get out of her Verizon contract and switch to the iPhone, she's totally jealous of mine.
iPhone puts all other smartphones to shame. Period.
Yagrax
(former Kyocera 6035, former Treo 650, and former Treo 700wx and 700p user, programmer, hacker, etc)
Posted by Yagrax | August 22, 2007 2:29 AM
Here is a pretty good web based scientific calculator - scicalc.belfry.com
Posted by iplay | September 7, 2007 1:53 AM
The iPhone Calculator needs to have a full complement of math functions and basic financial functions; Amort, Compound interest, etc.
Folks switching from Treo's will be amazed at how dumb iPhone's calculator is.
Posted by George | September 22, 2007 1:44 PM