Description of App
A comprehensively featured calculator that has become a favorite among adults and high school students around the world. Designed for a wide range of users, this calculator has large colorful buttons, optional high contrast, full VoiceOver support, and unique to this calculator; the option to use speech for answers, buttons names and formulas!
Regularly featured on "What's Hot" - Utilities
Video demo available from the support link.
Features include:
- Can read answers, entered numbers and formulas aloud.
Examples:
1,234.56 is spoken as "One thousand, two hundred and thirty four point five six."
2 + 3 x 5^2 is spoken as "two plus three multiply five squared."
- Built in recording studio and script. Requires less than 10 minutes to record a new voice.
- Two entry modes, Standard and Formula. Standard mode emulates traditional calculators. Formula mode takes care of the order of operations for you. You enter a mathematical expression, complete with operators and parentheses (brackets), tap the = button, and the expression is evaluated.
- The entire app is accessible to VoiceOver users. As you move your finger over the screen, the names of buttons are spoken to you. Double-tap to activate the selected button (or single tap with a second finger.) The calculator's voice will speak the calculation results. The iPad/iPhone’s Home button can be triple-clicked to switch this mode of operation on and off.
- Supports entry and display of Braille on supported Bluetooth devices (thanks to assistance from the Washington State School for the Blind.)
- Numeric formatting of results: Max fraction digits (default), fixed fraction digits (useful for currency calculations), and max significant digits (useful for science and engineering lab work), plus international formatting.
- Trigonometric, hyperbolic, logarithmic, permutations, combinations, factorial, powers, roots, percent and bit-wise operations, conversion between hexadecimal and decimal, random numbers.
- Full support for fractions (simple and mixed), conversion to and from decimal, fraction reduction, and use of fractions with all operators.
- Easy access to basic calculator functions, for those who rarely use scientific operations.
- Paper log feature, designed particularly for classroom use. Calculations can be recorded with a timestamp to be viewed and emailed.
- Pads get a user interface designed to make use of the large screen area. iPhones and iPod Touches get a user interface designed for the smaller screen. This includes large, easy to read scientific buttons, accessed on a scrolling panel. All the features of the iPad version are included in the smaller design.
Customizable for each level of vision:
Normal to low vision: Large, clear buttons with optional speech.
Low vision: High contrast display mode, with optional speech.
No vision / blind: VoiceOver reads the button names before they are activated. The calculation results are spoken. Entry and display on refreshable Braille devices.
Why record new voices?
Having your iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch talk with your own voice, or that of a friend or tutor will make the calculator sound more natural to you. The calculator will speak with the accent you are used to hearing. Note also that the VoiceOver feature built into your device, while awesome, is not good at reading out large and small numbers.
How good is the sound quality of recorded voices?
Excellent: The microphone in your iPad / iPhone or iPod Touch 4G is of very good quality, and this calculator performs digital signal processing to ensure the audio level is consistent across all recorded words.
Note: Earlier versions of the iPod Touch require an external microphone for recording. The current model iPod Touch and all iPhones and iPads have a built in mic.
Comments
Question
Other than the accessibility features, what's the difference between this app and the built-in iOS calculator?
it does much much more
Unlike the built-in calculator, this is also a very extensive scientific calculator. It is worth the price. Check it out. It is a good investment, although a small one.
Thoughts
Mainly bought this calculator to record custom voices. Found two minor labeling issues when working on homework on my iPad: the equals sign and the plus sign are mislabeled. Love the keyboard shortcut usability and the clean screen layout. Could not figure out how to enter anything other than 0 when I tried inputting expressions using a Braille display, even after I followed the directions in the help section. I also wish that the focus on the Braille display would show my calculation so I didn’t have to scroll to it. Overall, for what I wanted it for, I didn’t mind clunking down the $5.
From a functionality perspective, the built-in calculator app on the phone is pretty comparable if you switch to landscape orientation. I cannot remember if the built-in calculator features trig functions or not. I also honestly can’t remember if it reduces or converts to fractions or not… Whenever I use built-in calculator, I use it in portrait mode without even bothering to unlock my phone. That said, Desmos will forever be my go-to scientific calculator and graphing calculator when I’m doing homework simply because they’re more robust tools.