7 ms·

Graphing functionality on a phone reminds me of an old TI calculator. I really don't know why recent OSes (be it on PC, smartphone, tablet) always came with suc

by jckt 13y ago

Graphing functionality on a phone reminds me of an old TI calculator. I really don't know why recent OSes (be it on PC, smartphone, tablet) always came with such feeble calculators. It's not like TI calculators are difficult to use. Sure if all you want is add/min/mul/div functionality the TI is essentially a traditional calculator, and then behind that you've got all these nifty graphing utilities. It's not like a graphing calculator app is going to be that difficult to program, or going to be large in size. But no, in 2013, vanilla OS installations are stuck with a calculator app that has less features than that of a computer a few million times less powerful. (Now I feel bad; bitching and complaining is against the Open Source Spirit). Edit: I do recall that OSX comes with something similar, except that not many people actually know of it (as far as I can tell, from my friends with OSX).

Void_ 13y ago
Bitching and complaining is good for products, makes them better. Don't know much about OSS spirit, but doesn't their work need any improvement??
- jckt 13y ago
  By OSS spirit I meant that it's better to get coding than start complaining. But I see your point -- indeed we should do both, and plenty of it.
shurcooL 13y ago
On that note, iPad doesn't even have the iPhone Calculator app, and it's _impossible_ to get it (without hacking) because it's a built-in app; one you cannot remove nor acquire from the App Store. It's also missing Compass, Voice Memo and Passbook apps. Edit: Weather app too.
- frik 13y ago
  yes weird, plus the weather app is missing too. What's the reasoning behind the decision? Was it Steve Jobs who decided that?
  - shurcooL 13y ago
    They just haven't created the full size iPad versions for them at this time. iOS 6/7 added some previously iPhone-only built-in apps.
  - cmelbye 13y ago
    I've always had a feeling that it's to differentiate iPad from iPhone. If they had the exact same apps, right down to a scaled up Calculator with gigantic buttons on the 10" display, it might make it less likely for consumers to think of iPad as a separate concept from iPhone. Calculator and Weather wouldn't really translate that well to a huge screen, anyways. And, of course, there are several great third-party apps to fill the void if you need them.
- superuser2 13y ago
  Missing compass because the WiFi version does not contain a GPS or magnetic compass.
  - shurcooL 13y ago
    There is a cellular version of the iPad too.
tolmasky 13y ago
Just a musing: perhaps its considered not as valuable an investment to program since a (the?) primary market is students, and students are probably not allowed to use phones on tests for obvious reasons (internet connectivity, texting questions to each other, overall distraction). However, TI's are state approved or whatever.
- fophillips 13y ago
  Never been allowed to use a TI for exams in the UK. I've only ever been allowed to use a Casio.
  - cmelbye 13y ago
    It's incredibly common for TI calculators to be allowed on exams in the United States. Several standardized tests specifically allow only TI calculators, along with a few others. I think GP's comment makes a lot of sense. Most students just aren't going to put the effort into learning how to use another graphing calculator program if they can't even use it in class.
  - asselinpaul 13y ago
    I am currently in Year 13 in London. You are definitely allowed TI in the mathematics exams (A-Levels). TI-89 is one of the only that is banned because of its CAS. Friends in the French system are allowed the TI 89 though.
    - burriko 13y ago
      Yep, I did Maths A-level in the UK back in the 90s, and a TI graphing calculator was basically a requirement for the exams.
      - fophillips 13y ago
        Interesting, I wasn't allowed to use one in A-Levels or university exams.
    - 13y ago
fredsted 13y ago
Yep, Grapher is a nice app with an interesting history: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grapher http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grapher
- Someone 13y ago
  Does Grapher share any source with Graphing Calculator? I guess it might, given that Apple shipped Graphing Calculator with Mac OS before, and given Graphing Calculator's interesting early history (http://www.pacifict.com/Story/ http://www.pacifict.com/Story/) (I wonder how Apple negotiated that deal originally. I guess some lawyers spent quite some time arguing whose intellectual property it originally was. The programmers weren't paid by Apple, but worked at Infinite Loop)
Someone 13y ago
"It's not like a graphing calculator app is going to be that difficult to program" It is surprisingly hard to get something that produces reliable plots. It starts with getting something as simple as sin(1/x) or x/(x^2 + 5x + 1) to plot reasonably well, and gets harder from there soon (edit: if you want to complicate things, pick a function that is only defined on some numbers, such as sqrt(x^2 * sin(x^3 - x). Adding a pair of || around subexpressions also complicates things) For example, at https://www.desmos.com/calculator https://www.desmos.com/calculator (one of the top results from a google search) zooming in on sin(1/x) shows a plot that sometimes doesn't go up to 1.0 for values of x close to zero. Its plot is decent, but deceiving. And you will have to do those well, as the target audience of students encounters such functions every day. And the Mac OS X one is Grapher (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grapher http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grapher)
bane 13y ago
It's depressing to me that the closest I can get to the TI-92+ I had in college is to emulate a TI-92+ on my computer or Android devices (actually on a tablet it's not too bad). My other options (Octave, Matlab, etc.) are way too heavy for what I want to do and require too much time to learn. They don't have that sort of pickup-and-use feature my old calculators used to have. I think it's the presence of most of the buttons I'm ever going to be interested in on the keyboard rather than having to figure out how to type something that means the same as an integral or some such. The discoverability of those buttons beats most modern software hands down. I also suspect that writing simple to use general purpose solvers and simplifiers for the things the TI calcs do (the CAS) is likely very hard. I remember putting even pretty complex physics equations with all sorts of trig functions and exponents and integrals and such in during college and it handled most of them without trouble and pretty printed the result.
- csmuk 13y ago
  Ha I had a TI92 (not plus) a number of years ago. Weighed a ton - you could kill someone with it. Sold it and got an HP48GX after I discovered that you couldn't get the plus module for it in the UK for a reasonable price. Never looked back.
- cstejerean 13y ago
  I miss my TI-92+ as well. It feels like an iPad has enough screen real estate to be able to simulate the same experience, and I was surprised that nobody has done it yet. Edit: looks like there are some good options for Android that actually emulate TI calculators, and apparently TI has Nspire for the iPad.
robterrell 13y ago
On OS X it's Graphing Calculator. See the amazing story behind it: http://www.pacifict.com/Story/ http://www.pacifict.com/Story/
- axman6 13y ago
  I was just going to write this comment myself before checking to see if I'd been beaten. It's definitely one of the great stories of computer history.

by jckt 13y ago

Void_ 13y ago

Bitching and complaining is good for products, makes them better. Don't know much about OSS spirit, but doesn't their work need any improvement??

jckt 13y ago
By OSS spirit I meant that it's better to get coding than start complaining. But I see your point -- indeed we should do both, and plenty of it.

shurcooL 13y ago

On that note, iPad doesn't even have the iPhone Calculator app, and it's _impossible_ to get it (without hacking) because it's a built-in app; one you cannot remove nor acquire from the App Store. It's also missing Compass, Voice Memo and Passbook apps. Edit: Weather app too.

frik 13y ago
yes weird, plus the weather app is missing too. What's the reasoning behind the decision? Was it Steve Jobs who decided that?
- shurcooL 13y ago
  They just haven't created the full size iPad versions for them at this time. iOS 6/7 added some previously iPhone-only built-in apps.
- cmelbye 13y ago
  I've always had a feeling that it's to differentiate iPad from iPhone. If they had the exact same apps, right down to a scaled up Calculator with gigantic buttons on the 10" display, it might make it less likely for consumers to think of iPad as a separate concept from iPhone. Calculator and Weather wouldn't really translate that well to a huge screen, anyways. And, of course, there are several great third-party apps to fill the void if you need them.
superuser2 13y ago
Missing compass because the WiFi version does not contain a GPS or magnetic compass.
- shurcooL 13y ago
  There is a cellular version of the iPad too.

tolmasky 13y ago

Just a musing: perhaps its considered not as valuable an investment to program since a (the?) primary market is students, and students are probably not allowed to use phones on tests for obvious reasons (internet connectivity, texting questions to each other, overall distraction). However, TI's are state approved or whatever.

fophillips 13y ago
Never been allowed to use a TI for exams in the UK. I've only ever been allowed to use a Casio.
- cmelbye 13y ago
  It's incredibly common for TI calculators to be allowed on exams in the United States. Several standardized tests specifically allow only TI calculators, along with a few others. I think GP's comment makes a lot of sense. Most students just aren't going to put the effort into learning how to use another graphing calculator program if they can't even use it in class.
- asselinpaul 13y ago
  I am currently in Year 13 in London. You are definitely allowed TI in the mathematics exams (A-Levels). TI-89 is one of the only that is banned because of its CAS. Friends in the French system are allowed the TI 89 though.
  - burriko 13y ago
    Yep, I did Maths A-level in the UK back in the 90s, and a TI graphing calculator was basically a requirement for the exams.
    - fophillips 13y ago
      Interesting, I wasn't allowed to use one in A-Levels or university exams.
  - 13y ago

fredsted 13y ago

Yep, Grapher is a nice app with an interesting history: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grapher http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grapher

Someone 13y ago
Does Grapher share any source with Graphing Calculator? I guess it might, given that Apple shipped Graphing Calculator with Mac OS before, and given Graphing Calculator's interesting early history (http://www.pacifict.com/Story/ http://www.pacifict.com/Story/) (I wonder how Apple negotiated that deal originally. I guess some lawyers spent quite some time arguing whose intellectual property it originally was. The programmers weren't paid by Apple, but worked at Infinite Loop)

Someone 13y ago

"It's not like a graphing calculator app is going to be that difficult to program" It is surprisingly hard to get something that produces reliable plots. It starts with getting something as simple as sin(1/x) or x/(x^2 + 5x + 1) to plot reasonably well, and gets harder from there soon (edit: if you want to complicate things, pick a function that is only defined on some numbers, such as sqrt(x^2 * sin(x^3 - x). Adding a pair of || around subexpressions also complicates things) For example, at https://www.desmos.com/calculator https://www.desmos.com/calculator (one of the top results from a google search) zooming in on sin(1/x) shows a plot that sometimes doesn't go up to 1.0 for values of x close to zero. Its plot is decent, but deceiving. And you will have to do those well, as the target audience of students encounters such functions every day. And the Mac OS X one is Grapher (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grapher http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grapher)

bane 13y ago

It's depressing to me that the closest I can get to the TI-92+ I had in college is to emulate a TI-92+ on my computer or Android devices (actually on a tablet it's not too bad). My other options (Octave, Matlab, etc.) are way too heavy for what I want to do and require too much time to learn. They don't have that sort of pickup-and-use feature my old calculators used to have. I think it's the presence of most of the buttons I'm ever going to be interested in on the keyboard rather than having to figure out how to type something that means the same as an integral or some such. The discoverability of those buttons beats most modern software hands down. I also suspect that writing simple to use general purpose solvers and simplifiers for the things the TI calcs do (the CAS) is likely very hard. I remember putting even pretty complex physics equations with all sorts of trig functions and exponents and integrals and such in during college and it handled most of them without trouble and pretty printed the result.

csmuk 13y ago
Ha I had a TI92 (not plus) a number of years ago. Weighed a ton - you could kill someone with it. Sold it and got an HP48GX after I discovered that you couldn't get the plus module for it in the UK for a reasonable price. Never looked back.
cstejerean 13y ago
I miss my TI-92+ as well. It feels like an iPad has enough screen real estate to be able to simulate the same experience, and I was surprised that nobody has done it yet. Edit: looks like there are some good options for Android that actually emulate TI calculators, and apparently TI has Nspire for the iPad.

robterrell 13y ago

On OS X it's Graphing Calculator. See the amazing story behind it: http://www.pacifict.com/Story/ http://www.pacifict.com/Story/

axman6 13y ago
I was just going to write this comment myself before checking to see if I'd been beaten. It's definitely one of the great stories of computer history.