Calcbot is a universal calculator application for iPad and iPhone. It is a basic scientific calculator but is designed well with big buttons and tape. For this review, we will be focusing on the iPad version.
In landscape, you will find the calculator on the left and tape on the right. The calculator has two pages of buttons which keeps them nice and big. Just swipe the calculator to the left to bring the next page of functions. The first page is primarily numbers and basic operators as well as power and root functions. The second page contains a more functions such at the specific powers of 2 and 3, square root, factorial, log, natural logarithm, exponential, and trigonometric functions. Tapping the shift key (up arrow) will change the trigonometric functions to their inverses. Calcbot lets you chose between radians and degrees as well. The second page does not include an equal sign. This is annoying because a calculation does not appear on the tape until the equal sign is tapped.
If you want to re-enter a calculation from the tape, just tap the desired calculation and a menu pops up to use result, use expression, copy, send in email, or delete. You can also swipe to delete any expression. To email or clear the entire tape, tap the wheel in the upper right hand corner. If you're not interested in seeing the tape, rotate to portrait mode to view only the calculator.
Calcbot is an excellent little calculator app that looks and works great. There is nothing fancy about it, but that's part of it's appeal. Calcbot is strait-forward and to the point which makes it easy and intuitive to use. Simply put, Calcbot is another visually appealing and terrifically designed app by Tapbots.
Apple has just updated their Mobile iDisk app not only to add iOS 4 multitasking but also making it a universal app to support both iPhone and iPad. Here are the details on version 2.1:
If you see a + sign next to or below an app in the iTunes App Store, it indicates that app is universal -- designed to work natively on both the iPhone and iPad.
Typically these universal apps are provided by developers when the functionality is similar on both iPad and iPhone, but due to the iPad's large screen a different interface is needed (to include sidebars, popovers, and wide views instead of deep levels).
It also means you only have to download -- and pay for -- the app once.
