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IOS Math

Apple Made an iPad Calculator App After 14 Years (theverge.com) 62

Posted by BeauHD from the years-in-the-making dept.
Jay Peters reports via The Verge: The iPad is finally getting a Calculator app as part of iPadOS 18. The long-requested app was just announced by Apple at WWDC 2024. On its face, the app looks a lot like the calculator you might be familiar with from iOS. But it also supports Apple Pencil, meaning that you can write down math problems and the app will solve them thanks to a feature Apple calls Math Notes. Other features included in iPadOS 18 include a new, customizable floating tab bar; enhanced SharePlay functionality for easier screen sharing and remote control of another person's iPad; and Smart Script, a handwriting feature that refines and improves legibility using machine learning.
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Apple Made an iPad Calculator App After 14 Years More

Apple Made an iPad Calculator App After 14 Years

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  • Omg (Score:5, Funny)

    by ACForever ( 6277156 ) on Monday June 10, 2024 @07:04PM (#64539555)
    Can't innovate my ass

    • Re:Omg (Score:5, Funny)

      by Roger W Moore ( 538166 ) on Monday June 10, 2024 @11:01PM (#64539895) Journal
      Something doesn't add up here.

    • Next you'll be telling us the iPad is finally getting Whatsapp, I know, I know, that's just crazy talk...

      • Open the browser on your iPad and open web.whatsapp.com. This, after logging in, connects you to your account.
      • There is one in beta at the moment, so hopefully soon there might be a proper app. Also WhatsApp is a Facebook/meta program, so it is them dragging their feet

    • Very brave move by Apple here.

    • Not sure whether it's innovative or not, but it's not your usual calculator app. You can write down math problems using the apple pencil and it will solve those problems. You can also draw physics problems and ask it to solve and answer questions. It's kind of like the entire screen is a scratch board where you can write equations, create variables, draw, etc. Pretty useful as a learning tool, I think.

  • I'm tired of making fun of Apple users. When I hear about their technical problems, it saddens me;
    I want it to work. I want the dream to be true, a Unix based desktop for the masses.
    But this ain't it

    • Mac computer operating systems, and iPhones have always had a calculator app.

      The iPad lack of it it was a weird omission, but the lack of a bundled caclulator app on iPad (until now) didn't really affect how good or not macOS is as a Unix based operating system.

      Personally I think it's pretty great, really good default file system, good default encryption, really good transition to ARM based hardware that was an actual giant leap in battery life, throw in some add ons like Alfred and a good Terminal replacem

    • Which technical problems?

      Downloading third party calculator was a killer technical problem?

  • Of all this shit I have seen about iOS 18, this is the only feature I find helpful.

    • Yeah there were only a handful of features that looked interesting:

      * Math Notes
      * Game Mode on iPhone
      * iPhone mirroring
      * X-Ray, I mean Insights, is coming to Apple TV+
      * Writing Streaks
      * Hotkey to move a window to the bottom half of the screen
      * Email Summary -- maybe?

      Still no ability to leave gaps in the iPhone icon layout. Maybe next year.

    • RCS communication to Android instead of pure SMS is pretty helpful for me.

      Personally I think having AI powered Siri and search is going to make my life a lot easier when looking for photos, but I understand why it's not for everyone.

      Making your own emojis and generated art... ehhh, well, someone's going to like that, but I definately understand that not being for everyone.

  • How about a dictionary? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by RazorSharp ( 1418697 ) on Monday June 10, 2024 @08:08PM (#64539687)

    macOS has the best dictionary app of any platform. On iOS you have to install something from the app store that either costs money, is packed full of ads, or sucks as bad as any Linux or Windows dictionary app (they all suck). Bring the macOS dictionary to my iPhone, dammit!

    • Amen! It is so strange that one product has a great feature and on other platforms it is *crickets.*

    • Re:How about a dictionary? (Score:4, Informative)

      by bug_hunter ( 32923 ) on Monday June 10, 2024 @08:39PM (#64539741)

      The macOS dictionary app is really good BUT for people who occasionally forget a reasonable spelling of a word, the dictionary's built in spell checker isn't that great (as in how good it is at suggesting real words when you provided a misspelt word). Since 99% of the time I use the dictionary it's for spelling and not for the definition, that's pretty important for me.

      I end up having to Google the word, to have Google tell me - uh did you mean this?

  • 2YO (Score:2)

    by dohzer ( 867770 )

    Are we really OK with Apply giving our neglected children things like calculators and Notability while unattended!?

    • It's on the iPhones. It was just excluded for bizarre reasons from the iPad. Even when iPhone and iPad had the same iOS. I remember once searching for quite some time trying to find where the calculator app was, then started googling "my calculator went missing on my ipad"...

  • Courage (Score:3)

    by awwshit ( 6214476 ) on Monday June 10, 2024 @08:59PM (#64539757)

    Apple's courage is just astounding.

  • I told Microsoft we need Patience and Minesweeper (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    to make any Surface device a success!

  • You're all a bunch of dinosaurs not realizing that you've been left behind in the past for over 2 decades already.

  • It does all the expected calendar stuff plus can calculate a ton of other things related to speed, volume, weight, interest, tip splitting, and 2-3 dozen other things in an easily accessed menu.

    No longer care about Apple's calculator.

  • Seven Apple Slashvertisments on the front page :o

  • Everyone knows iPad users can do math in their head.

  • Really, half the crap they came up with was so overdue, most of which should have been completed in the first IOS release if not the second release. Given the number of staff Apple has working for them how can it have taken then so long, this should have been the interns job to bring across the calculator and icon layout enhancements and theming options during the summer vacation. I really wonder what the hell Apple has all those people doing for it to take this long.
    • Apple had some powerful people working for them whose word was law. They'd decree functionality that could and couldn't exist and you'd better have all your ducks in a row if you planned to argue against them. Now many of those powerful people are gone and they are slowly but surely implementing the forbidden features. Time will tell if this leads to a golden age of iOS functionality or a dreadful mire of half baked features that integrate poorly and get deprecated in favour of new half baked features.
  • And, of course, what's a computer?
  • My iPad 'PRO' still can't download a file while I check my email.

  • I swear to god, if they start letting people sort their photo albums by name, I'll throw my iphone 13 Pro Max out the window. That's the last straw!

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