8 ms·

Almost no one has done that calculator app, properly. When I mean properly, I mean a complete calculator, like the TI-89. I am using, in Android, and emulator

by Shorel 2y ago

Almost no one has done that calculator app, properly. When I mean properly, I mean a complete calculator, like the TI-89. I am using, in Android, and emulator for the TI-89 calculator. Because no Android app has half the features, and works as well.

anthk 2y ago
Maxima
- Shorel 2y ago
  Yep, I use that in the laptop. But the smartphone still needs a good one calculator App.
  - lupire 2y ago
    Geogebra and Desmos
orbital-decay 2y ago
It's not even about features. Calculators are mostly useful for napkin math - if I can't afford an error, I'll take some full-fledged math software/package and write a program that will be debuggable, testable, and have version control. But for some reason the authors of calculator apps never optimize them for the number of keypresses, unlike Casio/TI/HP. It's a lost art. Even a simple operator repetition is a completely alien concept for new apps. Even the devs of the apps that are supposed to be snappy, like speedcrunch, seem to completely misunderstand the niche of a calculator, are they not using it themselves? Calculator is neither a CAS nor a REPL. For Android in particular, I've only found two non-emulated calculators worth using for that, HiPER Calc and 10BA by Segitiga.Pro. And I'm not sure I can trust the correctness.
- cgcrob 2y ago
  Proper ones are certainly usable for more than napkin math. I deal with fairly simple definite integrals and linear algebra occasionally. It's easier for me to plug this into a programmable calculator than it is to scratch in the dirt on Maxima or Mathematica most of the time if I just need an answer.
- jfengel 2y ago
  I find that much of the time I want WolframAlpha for when basic arithmetic, because I like the way it tracks and converts units. It's such a simple way to check that my calculation isn't completely off base. If I forget to square something or I multiply when I meant to divide I get an obviously wrong answer. Plus of course not having to do even more arithmetic when one site gives me kilograms and another gives me ounces.
  - Aachen 2y ago
    qalc also tracks and converts units, and is open source (practical benefit: runs offline). I have it on Android via a Debian subsystem but just checked and Termux simply has it also (pkg install qalc) Random example off the top of my head to show off some features: say it takes 5 minutes to get to space, and I heard you come around every 90 minutes, but there's differing definitions on whether space is 80 or 100 km above the surface, then if you're curious about the G forces during launch: (2*pi*(6350+ 90±10)km / 90 minutes) / 5 minutes to gees ((2 × pi × ((6350 + 90±10) kilometers)) / (90 minutes)) / (5 minutes) ≈ 2.5470±0.0040 gees (the output has color coding for units, constants, numbers, and operators) It understands unicode plusminus for uncertainty tracking, units, function calls like log(n,base), find factors, it will do currencies too if you let it download a table from the internet... I love this software package. (No affiliation, just a happy user who discovered this way too late in life) It's not as clever as WolframAlpha, no natural language parsing or Pokédex functions (sometimes I do wish that it knew things like Earth radii), but it also runs anywhere and never tells you the computation took too long and so was cancelled Edit: I just learned there's now also an Android app! https://github.com/jherkenhoff/qalculate-android https://github.com/jherkenhoff/qalculate-android | https://f-droid.org/packages/com.jherkenhoff.qalculate/ https://f-droid.org/packages/com.jherkenhoff.qalculate/ I've checked before and there wasn't back then, so this is cool. This version says it supports graph plotting which the command-line version doesn't do
    - Magnap 2y ago
      Qalculate! has been my go-to calculator on my laptop for years, very happy to have it on my phone now too! And it definitely knows planet radii, try `planet("earth"; "radius")`. Specifically, it knows a bunch of attributes about atoms (most importantly to me, their atomic mass) and planets (including niche things like mean surface temperature). You can see all the data here: https://qalculate.github.io/manual/qalculate-definitions-functions.html#qalculate-definitions-functions-1-Data-Sets https://qalculate.github.io/manual/qalculate-definitions-fun...
- kqr 2y ago
  If you're willing to learn to work with RPN calculators (which I think is a good idea), I can recommend RealCalc for Android. It has an RPN mode that is very economic in keypresses and it's clear the developers understand how touchscreens work and how that ties into the kind of work pocket calculators are useful for. My only gripe with it is that it doesn't solve compounding return equations, but for that one can use an emulated HP-12c.
  - HachiWari8 2y ago
    RealCalc Plus is great on the Android side. If using iPhone/iPad/macOS, try BVCalc. Its RPN mode shows you the algebraic expression (i.e., using infix notation display) for each item on the stack, which both helps you check for entry mistakes and also more easily keep track of what each stack item represents. I haven't found another RPN calculator that can do this.
  - antod 2y ago
    On Android, I just went straight to using an emulator of the HP42S that got me through engineering school in the early 90s. The muscle memory for the basics was still there, even if I can't remember how to use the advanced functions any more. I still have my actual HP, but it seems to chew batteries now.
- vegesm 2y ago
  I'm the developer of an Android calculator, called Algeo [1] and I wonder which part of it that makes it feel like slow/not snappy? I'm trying to constantly improve it, though UX is a hard problem. [1] - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.algeo.algeo https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.algeo.alge...
  - orbital-decay 2y ago
    This seems to be an expression mode calculator. It simply calculates the result of an expression, which makes it like the other 999 calculators in the Play Store. Classic algebraic calculators are able to to things like: 57 x = (displays the result of 57x57) 3 = (repeats the multiplication and displays 57x3) [+/-] MS (inverts the result and stores it in the memory without resetting the previous operation) 7 = (repeats the multiplication for 7 and displays 57x7) 7 [1/x] = (repeats the multiplication for 1/7, displays 57/7) It doesn't have to be basic arithmetic, this way you can do complex numbers, trigonometry, stats, financial calculations, integrals, ODEs etc. Just have a way to juggle operands and inverse operators, and some quick registers/variables one keypress away (see the classic MS/MR mechanism or the stack in RPN). RPN calculators can often be more efficient, although at the cost of some entry barrier. That's what you do with the classic calculators. Often, you are not even directly calculating things, you're augmenting your intuition and offloading a part of the problem to quickly explore its space in a few keypresses (what if?..), give a guesstimate, and do some sanity checks on whether you're in the right ballpark, all at the same time. Graphing, dimensional analysis in physics, error propagation help a lot in detecting bullshit in your estimates as quickly as possible. If you're also familiar with numerical methods, you can do miracles at the speed of thought. Slide rules were a lot like that as well. People who do this might not be your target audience, though.
- IsaacL 2y ago
  This relates to what I wrote in reply to the original tweet thread. Performing arithmetic on arbitrarily complex mathematical functions is an interesting area of research but not useful to 99% of calculator users. People who want that functionality with use Wolfram Alpha/Mathematica, Matlab, some software library, or similar. Most people using calculators are probably using them for budgeting, tax returns, DIY projects ("how much paint do I need?", etc), homework, calorie tracking, etc. If I was building a calculator app -- especially if I had the resources of Google -- I would start with trying to get inside the mind of the average calculator user and figuring out their actual problems. E.g., perhaps most people just use standard 'napkin math', but struggle a bit with multi-step calculations. > But for some reason the authors of calculator apps never optimize them for the number of keypresses, unlike Casio/TI/HP. It's a lost art. Even a simple operator repetition is a completely alien concept for new apps. Yes, there's probably a lot of low-hanging fruit here. The Android calculator story sounded like many products that came out of Google -- brilliant technical work, but some sort of weird disconnect with the needs of actual users. (It's not like the researchers ignored users -- they did discuss UI needs in the paper. But everything was distant and theoretical -- at no point did I see any mention of the actual workflow of calculator users, the problems they solve, or the particular UI snags they struggle with.)
cgcrob 2y ago
Yes that. I use free42 on my phone and mac. And an actual real HP 42S. Edit: and Maxima as well on the mac (to back up another user's comment)
readyplayernull 2y ago
Another app nobody has made is a simple random music player. Tried VLC on Android and adding 5000+ songs from SD card into a playlist for shuffling simply crashes the app. Why do we need a play list anyway, just play the folder! Is it trying to load the whole list at the same time into memory? VLC always works, but not on this task. Found another player that doesn't require building a playlist but when the app is restarted it starts from the same song following the same random seed. Either save the last one or let me set the seed!
- zimpenfish 2y ago
  > Another app nobody has made is a simple random music player. Marvis on iOS is pretty good at this. I use it to shuffle music with some rules ("low skip %, not added recently, not listened to recently")[0] and it always does a good job. [0] Because "create playlist" is still broken in iOS Shortcuts, incredibly.
- teknopaul 2y ago
  I suspect nobody made xxx vlc plug-in because compiling it is far too hard. I tried to make a joystick controller for a particular use case on one platform (Linux) and I gave up. VLC solves a hard problem. Supporting lots of different libs, versions, platforms, hardware and on top of that licensing issues.
- bobsmooth 2y ago
  The Samsung music player can do that but you need a Samsung phone.
  - readyplayernull 2y ago
    Tried it but it can only add up to 1000 songs per playlist.
    - bobsmooth 2y ago
      I just hit shuffle and it plays all the media files on my phone (including voice memos which is annoying)
StrangeDoctor 2y ago
Well the 89 is a CAS in disguise most of the time which is mentioned in passing in the article. But, I agree I almost never want the full power of Mathematica/sage initially but quickly become annoyed with calc apps. The 89 and hp prime//50 have just enough to solve anything where I wouldn’t rather just use a full programming language.
db48x 2y ago
Same here, except I use an HP48 emulator because TI sucks and HP rocks.
ezst 2y ago
GeoGebra, in fact, embeds xcas and has a touchscreen friendly UI.
the_third_wave 2y ago
HiPER Calc Pro looks like and works like a "physical" calculator, I've use it for years to get effect. I also have Wabbitemu but hardly ever use it, the former works fine for nearly everything.
- Shorel 2y ago
  I just installed it, for about 2 Eur. Thanks for the heads up, I will be testing it for a few months, to see if it can replace the TI-89 emulator as my main calculator. Edit: that calculator gives a result of 0 on this test
acidburnNSA 2y ago
Just tried the TI-89 emulator on android and it says 1e100 + 1 - 1e100 is 0
- imglorp 2y ago
  HP42 on Android checks out
  - anonymousiam 2y ago
    My favorite Android calculator is RealCalc. I've been using it since I got it for PalmOS about 25 years ago. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=uk.co.nickfines.RealCalc&hl=en_US&pli=1 https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=uk.co.nickfine...
    - jvdvegt 2y ago
      I use it too, but it also computes 0 instead of 1 for: e^100 + 1 - e^100
- Shorel 2y ago
  Here I got 1 as the answer: https://imgur.com/a/TH14QZn https://imgur.com/a/TH14QZn
  - acidburnNSA 2y ago
    Aha! So 1e100 doesn't work but 1^100 does. Ok thanks!
    - xeonmc 2y ago
      1^100 = 1 though
      - ghusbands 2y ago
        That's a typo in the response, I believe. The screenshot shows 10^100 (10 to the power of 100).
jacobp100 2y ago
I've put a lot of effort into mine, TechniCalc I've been working on it for what will be a decade later this year. It tries to take all the features you had on these physical calculators, but present them in a modern way. It works on macOS, iOS, and iPad OS With regards to the article, I wasn't quite as sophisticated as that. I do track rationals, exponents, square roots, and multiples of pi; then fall back to decimal when needed. This part is open source, though! Marketing page - https://jacobdoescode.com/technicalc https://jacobdoescode.com/technicalc AppStore Link - https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/technicalc-calculator/id1504965415 https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/technicalc-calculator/id150496... Open source components - https://github.com/jacobp100/technicalc-core https://github.com/jacobp100/technicalc-core
- sneak 2y ago
  I am seriously curious when it became not a violation of the principle of least surprise that a calculator app uses the network to communicate information from my device (which definitionally belongs to me) to the developer. Where I am standing, that never happened, but that would require that a simply staggering number of people be classified as unreasonable.
  - jacobp100 2y ago
    The only network requests are for currency rates, and Sentry crash logs. I don’t collect analytics other than these crash logs https://jacobdoescode.com/privacy https://jacobdoescode.com/privacy
    - sneak 2y ago
      It is the Sentry surveillance to which I refer. The crashes on my computer do not belong to you.
      - jacobp100 2y ago
        You can't please everyone. Do note these are only sent when something goes wrong in the app. To give you an indication of how little I collect, for the last 30 days, I can see 3,700 app sessions (only includes people who opted into Apple's analytics), and 14 reports of exceptions within the app. That's fewer than 0.4% of users.
lupire 2y ago
TI-89 doesn't have infinite precision. Built-in Android calculator does. They are incomparable. TI-89 has tons of features, but can't take a square foot to high accuracy.
vaporary 2y ago
Can you tell me which emulator you're using? I loved using the open source Wabbitemu on previous Android phones, but it seems to have been removed from the app store, so I can't install it on newer devices :-/
- Shorel 2y ago
  https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.eanema.graph89/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.eanema.graph89/
entrepy123 2y ago
And the most usable calculator on iOS is easily GrafNCalc83 (a very close TI-83 homage), IMO, even for simple math.
phonon 2y ago
That's not surprising, considering the TI-89 was based on a full CAS, Derive. (A 3.3 MB program!) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derive_(computer_algebra_system) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derive_(computer_algebra_syste...
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

by Shorel 2y ago

anthk 2y ago

Maxima

Shorel 2y ago
Yep, I use that in the laptop. But the smartphone still needs a good one calculator App.
- lupire 2y ago
  Geogebra and Desmos

orbital-decay 2y ago

It's not even about features. Calculators are mostly useful for napkin math - if I can't afford an error, I'll take some full-fledged math software/package and write a program that will be debuggable, testable, and have version control. But for some reason the authors of calculator apps never optimize them for the number of keypresses, unlike Casio/TI/HP. It's a lost art. Even a simple operator repetition is a completely alien concept for new apps. Even the devs of the apps that are supposed to be snappy, like speedcrunch, seem to completely misunderstand the niche of a calculator, are they not using it themselves? Calculator is neither a CAS nor a REPL. For Android in particular, I've only found two non-emulated calculators worth using for that, HiPER Calc and 10BA by Segitiga.Pro. And I'm not sure I can trust the correctness.

cgcrob 2y ago
Proper ones are certainly usable for more than napkin math. I deal with fairly simple definite integrals and linear algebra occasionally. It's easier for me to plug this into a programmable calculator than it is to scratch in the dirt on Maxima or Mathematica most of the time if I just need an answer.
jfengel 2y ago
I find that much of the time I want WolframAlpha for when basic arithmetic, because I like the way it tracks and converts units. It's such a simple way to check that my calculation isn't completely off base. If I forget to square something or I multiply when I meant to divide I get an obviously wrong answer. Plus of course not having to do even more arithmetic when one site gives me kilograms and another gives me ounces.
- Aachen 2y ago
  qalc also tracks and converts units, and is open source (practical benefit: runs offline). I have it on Android via a Debian subsystem but just checked and Termux simply has it also (pkg install qalc) Random example off the top of my head to show off some features: say it takes 5 minutes to get to space, and I heard you come around every 90 minutes, but there's differing definitions on whether space is 80 or 100 km above the surface, then if you're curious about the G forces during launch: (2*pi*(6350+ 90±10)km / 90 minutes) / 5 minutes to gees ((2 × pi × ((6350 + 90±10) kilometers)) / (90 minutes)) / (5 minutes) ≈ 2.5470±0.0040 gees (the output has color coding for units, constants, numbers, and operators) It understands unicode plusminus for uncertainty tracking, units, function calls like log(n,base), find factors, it will do currencies too if you let it download a table from the internet... I love this software package. (No affiliation, just a happy user who discovered this way too late in life) It's not as clever as WolframAlpha, no natural language parsing or Pokédex functions (sometimes I do wish that it knew things like Earth radii), but it also runs anywhere and never tells you the computation took too long and so was cancelled Edit: I just learned there's now also an Android app! https://github.com/jherkenhoff/qalculate-android https://github.com/jherkenhoff/qalculate-android | https://f-droid.org/packages/com.jherkenhoff.qalculate/ https://f-droid.org/packages/com.jherkenhoff.qalculate/ I've checked before and there wasn't back then, so this is cool. This version says it supports graph plotting which the command-line version doesn't do
  - Magnap 2y ago
    Qalculate! has been my go-to calculator on my laptop for years, very happy to have it on my phone now too! And it definitely knows planet radii, try `planet("earth"; "radius")`. Specifically, it knows a bunch of attributes about atoms (most importantly to me, their atomic mass) and planets (including niche things like mean surface temperature). You can see all the data here: https://qalculate.github.io/manual/qalculate-definitions-functions.html#qalculate-definitions-functions-1-Data-Sets https://qalculate.github.io/manual/qalculate-definitions-fun...
kqr 2y ago
If you're willing to learn to work with RPN calculators (which I think is a good idea), I can recommend RealCalc for Android. It has an RPN mode that is very economic in keypresses and it's clear the developers understand how touchscreens work and how that ties into the kind of work pocket calculators are useful for. My only gripe with it is that it doesn't solve compounding return equations, but for that one can use an emulated HP-12c.
- HachiWari8 2y ago
  RealCalc Plus is great on the Android side. If using iPhone/iPad/macOS, try BVCalc. Its RPN mode shows you the algebraic expression (i.e., using infix notation display) for each item on the stack, which both helps you check for entry mistakes and also more easily keep track of what each stack item represents. I haven't found another RPN calculator that can do this.
- antod 2y ago
  On Android, I just went straight to using an emulator of the HP42S that got me through engineering school in the early 90s. The muscle memory for the basics was still there, even if I can't remember how to use the advanced functions any more. I still have my actual HP, but it seems to chew batteries now.
vegesm 2y ago
I'm the developer of an Android calculator, called Algeo [1] and I wonder which part of it that makes it feel like slow/not snappy? I'm trying to constantly improve it, though UX is a hard problem. [1] - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.algeo.algeo https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.algeo.alge...
- orbital-decay 2y ago
  This seems to be an expression mode calculator. It simply calculates the result of an expression, which makes it like the other 999 calculators in the Play Store. Classic algebraic calculators are able to to things like: 57 x = (displays the result of 57x57) 3 = (repeats the multiplication and displays 57x3) [+/-] MS (inverts the result and stores it in the memory without resetting the previous operation) 7 = (repeats the multiplication for 7 and displays 57x7) 7 [1/x] = (repeats the multiplication for 1/7, displays 57/7) It doesn't have to be basic arithmetic, this way you can do complex numbers, trigonometry, stats, financial calculations, integrals, ODEs etc. Just have a way to juggle operands and inverse operators, and some quick registers/variables one keypress away (see the classic MS/MR mechanism or the stack in RPN). RPN calculators can often be more efficient, although at the cost of some entry barrier. That's what you do with the classic calculators. Often, you are not even directly calculating things, you're augmenting your intuition and offloading a part of the problem to quickly explore its space in a few keypresses (what if?..), give a guesstimate, and do some sanity checks on whether you're in the right ballpark, all at the same time. Graphing, dimensional analysis in physics, error propagation help a lot in detecting bullshit in your estimates as quickly as possible. If you're also familiar with numerical methods, you can do miracles at the speed of thought. Slide rules were a lot like that as well. People who do this might not be your target audience, though.
IsaacL 2y ago
This relates to what I wrote in reply to the original tweet thread. Performing arithmetic on arbitrarily complex mathematical functions is an interesting area of research but not useful to 99% of calculator users. People who want that functionality with use Wolfram Alpha/Mathematica, Matlab, some software library, or similar. Most people using calculators are probably using them for budgeting, tax returns, DIY projects ("how much paint do I need?", etc), homework, calorie tracking, etc. If I was building a calculator app -- especially if I had the resources of Google -- I would start with trying to get inside the mind of the average calculator user and figuring out their actual problems. E.g., perhaps most people just use standard 'napkin math', but struggle a bit with multi-step calculations. > But for some reason the authors of calculator apps never optimize them for the number of keypresses, unlike Casio/TI/HP. It's a lost art. Even a simple operator repetition is a completely alien concept for new apps. Yes, there's probably a lot of low-hanging fruit here. The Android calculator story sounded like many products that came out of Google -- brilliant technical work, but some sort of weird disconnect with the needs of actual users. (It's not like the researchers ignored users -- they did discuss UI needs in the paper. But everything was distant and theoretical -- at no point did I see any mention of the actual workflow of calculator users, the problems they solve, or the particular UI snags they struggle with.)

cgcrob 2y ago

Yes that. I use free42 on my phone and mac. And an actual real HP 42S. Edit: and Maxima as well on the mac (to back up another user's comment)

readyplayernull 2y ago

Another app nobody has made is a simple random music player. Tried VLC on Android and adding 5000+ songs from SD card into a playlist for shuffling simply crashes the app. Why do we need a play list anyway, just play the folder! Is it trying to load the whole list at the same time into memory? VLC always works, but not on this task. Found another player that doesn't require building a playlist but when the app is restarted it starts from the same song following the same random seed. Either save the last one or let me set the seed!

zimpenfish 2y ago
> Another app nobody has made is a simple random music player. Marvis on iOS is pretty good at this. I use it to shuffle music with some rules ("low skip %, not added recently, not listened to recently")[0] and it always does a good job. [0] Because "create playlist" is still broken in iOS Shortcuts, incredibly.
teknopaul 2y ago
I suspect nobody made xxx vlc plug-in because compiling it is far too hard. I tried to make a joystick controller for a particular use case on one platform (Linux) and I gave up. VLC solves a hard problem. Supporting lots of different libs, versions, platforms, hardware and on top of that licensing issues.
bobsmooth 2y ago
The Samsung music player can do that but you need a Samsung phone.
- readyplayernull 2y ago
  Tried it but it can only add up to 1000 songs per playlist.
  - bobsmooth 2y ago
    I just hit shuffle and it plays all the media files on my phone (including voice memos which is annoying)

StrangeDoctor 2y ago

Well the 89 is a CAS in disguise most of the time which is mentioned in passing in the article. But, I agree I almost never want the full power of Mathematica/sage initially but quickly become annoyed with calc apps. The 89 and hp prime//50 have just enough to solve anything where I wouldn’t rather just use a full programming language.

db48x 2y ago

Same here, except I use an HP48 emulator because TI sucks and HP rocks.

ezst 2y ago

GeoGebra, in fact, embeds xcas and has a touchscreen friendly UI.

the_third_wave 2y ago

HiPER Calc Pro looks like and works like a "physical" calculator, I've use it for years to get effect. I also have Wabbitemu but hardly ever use it, the former works fine for nearly everything.

Shorel 2y ago
I just installed it, for about 2 Eur. Thanks for the heads up, I will be testing it for a few months, to see if it can replace the TI-89 emulator as my main calculator. Edit: that calculator gives a result of 0 on this test

acidburnNSA 2y ago

Just tried the TI-89 emulator on android and it says 1e100 + 1 - 1e100 is 0

imglorp 2y ago
HP42 on Android checks out
- anonymousiam 2y ago
  My favorite Android calculator is RealCalc. I've been using it since I got it for PalmOS about 25 years ago. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=uk.co.nickfines.RealCalc&hl=en_US&pli=1 https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=uk.co.nickfine...
  - jvdvegt 2y ago
    I use it too, but it also computes 0 instead of 1 for: e^100 + 1 - e^100
Shorel 2y ago
Here I got 1 as the answer: https://imgur.com/a/TH14QZn https://imgur.com/a/TH14QZn
- acidburnNSA 2y ago
  Aha! So 1e100 doesn't work but 1^100 does. Ok thanks!
  - xeonmc 2y ago
    1^100 = 1 though
    - ghusbands 2y ago
      That's a typo in the response, I believe. The screenshot shows 10^100 (10 to the power of 100).

jacobp100 2y ago

I've put a lot of effort into mine, TechniCalc I've been working on it for what will be a decade later this year. It tries to take all the features you had on these physical calculators, but present them in a modern way. It works on macOS, iOS, and iPad OS With regards to the article, I wasn't quite as sophisticated as that. I do track rationals, exponents, square roots, and multiples of pi; then fall back to decimal when needed. This part is open source, though! Marketing page - https://jacobdoescode.com/technicalc https://jacobdoescode.com/technicalc AppStore Link - https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/technicalc-calculator/id1504965415 https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/technicalc-calculator/id150496... Open source components - https://github.com/jacobp100/technicalc-core https://github.com/jacobp100/technicalc-core

sneak 2y ago
I am seriously curious when it became not a violation of the principle of least surprise that a calculator app uses the network to communicate information from my device (which definitionally belongs to me) to the developer. Where I am standing, that never happened, but that would require that a simply staggering number of people be classified as unreasonable.
- jacobp100 2y ago
  The only network requests are for currency rates, and Sentry crash logs. I don’t collect analytics other than these crash logs https://jacobdoescode.com/privacy https://jacobdoescode.com/privacy
  - sneak 2y ago
    It is the Sentry surveillance to which I refer. The crashes on my computer do not belong to you.
    - jacobp100 2y ago
      You can't please everyone. Do note these are only sent when something goes wrong in the app. To give you an indication of how little I collect, for the last 30 days, I can see 3,700 app sessions (only includes people who opted into Apple's analytics), and 14 reports of exceptions within the app. That's fewer than 0.4% of users.

lupire 2y ago

TI-89 doesn't have infinite precision. Built-in Android calculator does. They are incomparable. TI-89 has tons of features, but can't take a square foot to high accuracy.

vaporary 2y ago

Can you tell me which emulator you're using? I loved using the open source Wabbitemu on previous Android phones, but it seems to have been removed from the app store, so I can't install it on newer devices :-/

Shorel 2y ago
https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.eanema.graph89/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.eanema.graph89/

entrepy123 2y ago

And the most usable calculator on iOS is easily GrafNCalc83 (a very close TI-83 homage), IMO, even for simple math.

phonon 2y ago

That's not surprising, considering the TI-89 was based on a full CAS, Derive. (A 3.3 MB program!) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derive_(computer_algebra_system) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derive_(computer_algebra_syste...

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]