5 ms·

Numi: Beautiful calculator app for Mac you will love to use every day

63 points by daviducolo 11y ago

protomyth 11y ago
I was quite happy they asked for the e-mail address after the beta started to download. That is a nice touch and makes me think they are worth giving the e-mail address to.
duiker101 11y ago
Well I opened the link being a bit sceptical but I have to admit it's really nice! well done!
Osmium 11y ago
Looks really nice. I'm a big fan of Soulver[1] too, which is basically a more featureful and less minimalist version of this. I've also tried Calca[2], which seems really good but ultimately didn't replace Soulver for me. On a tangential note, it's really nice to see that the Mac app scene still turns out these kinds of more experimental apps. Long may it continue! [1] http://www.acqualia.com/soulver/ http://www.acqualia.com/soulver/ [2] http://calca.io/ http://calca.io/
- nicerobot 11y ago
  Soulver is great and is what i use when mobile but I love Calca. I mostly use it in place of a spreadsheet, less as a replacement for a calculator.
quonn 11y ago
Feature request: Inline comments and multiline calculations woulds be nice.
Fannon 11y ago
Looks very nice! Is there something similar for Windows? Or for the linux shell?
- JosephRedfern 11y ago
  `bc` is similar (ish) under Linux - less "natural" syntax though.
- izolate 11y ago
  For the linux shell, I just type `python` and do all my calculations in the REPL
- hobarrera 11y ago
  calc(1) on linux/bsd/etc is pretty good, and will work for most stuff. The "natural language" bit is not present though.
bshimmin 11y ago
This looks really, really nice. But I think a problem for adoption is that on a Mac Spotlight can already do most of the calculations this does that I'd actually want to do on a regular basis (for me, that's currency conversion and some basic arithmetic). I can imagine downloading this, being impressed by its slickness, and then routinely forgetting to use it in favour of Spotlight.
- coldtea 11y ago
  >But I think a problem for adoption is that on a Mac Spotlight can already do most of the calculations this does that I'd actually want to do on a regular basis Not all, only in one single line, and without memory of previous calculations (I'm sure this has "variables" -- if not Soulver, which is similar, does). Not the same at all. Similar apps already there: Soulver, Calca.
- alialkhatib 11y ago
  Agreed. I barely use Alfred that much and that's mapped to the similar-but-different option+space (Spotlight is mapped to command+space by default). If this kind of functionality could extend Alfred (or Quicksilver?), there would be no question that this would see relatively regular use from me. If I need to open something, I'm much more likely to open another tab of my browser and dump queries (especially things like exchange/conversion rates) into Google. It's a shame, too, because the demo here is really persuasively showing that this can automatically do stuff I previously assumed necessarily takes an extra brain cycle or two.
  - bshimmin 11y ago
    I use Alfred too, almost entirely just to do "Sleep" and "Lock", which Spotlight - for no very good reason - doesn't let you do. If Spotlight could do those, I'd uninstall Alfred: even though it does many wondrous things, I just never remember to use it to do them. I'm certain this app would fall into the same category for me.
    - wingerlang 11y ago
ghshephard 11y ago
Highly recommend Soulver in this category as well - I probably use Soulver 100+ times a day, it's particularly awesome around things like throughput - you can throw things like, "10 kbits/second at 30 days in megabytes" - the sort of stuff people screw up all the time with excel when they forget to multiple by 8 somewhere. It can also do the Currency translation, "1 BTC in USD" And string a bunch of them, to do things like, "$2/square foot in SGD/square meter"
- kiiski 11y ago
  You can solve all three of those with Wolfram Alpha too, with no need for apps. Seems like Google knows how to solve the last two, but not the first one. Perhaps with some different syntax it would be possible too.
  - lobster_johnson 11y ago
    What I like about this app is that there's context and history. I use Spotlight all the time for these conversions, but there's no way for me to keep the last calculations around for reference or reuse; I have to put stuff in a text editor for that, which is a lot more awkward.
jbrooksuk 11y ago
I've been using Numi for a couple of weeks now. It's a really nice way of playing with an algorithm and breaking down each part with variables.
kbd 11y ago
Seems worth mentioning the Frink programming language here: https://futureboy.us/frinkdocs/ https://futureboy.us/frinkdocs/
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
anu_gupta 11y ago
Does this support hex/oct/binary? Doesn't seem to - that would be a very useful addition.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
Skovy 11y ago
You have a typo "You can use sing and word operators." in your first sentence on http://numi.io/docs/ http://numi.io/docs/
acron0 11y ago
Apps for just a single OS _in this day and age_ upset me :( Why is this OSX only? What element of it could only be achieved or expressed on a Mac? Disappointing. I want to use it but I can't.
- dharma1 11y ago
  Ditto. If this was built with say, Qt, it would be very easy to run everywhere
- geekam 11y ago
  Not just OSX, it is also just for one single version of OSX (Yosemite) so far.
- duaneb 11y ago
  I do not think I have ever seen a "beautiful" cross platform app. Maybe blender.
  - jokr004 11y ago
    I personally don't use it but I think the Atom[0] text editor is pretty attractive. Really there are plenty of examples, it's not impossible, you can make good looking apps with Qt without too much effort. [0] https://atom.io/ https://atom.io/
    - duaneb 11y ago
      I would argue that a text editor really stretches the definition of user interface. The non-text-editor chrome I am NOT a fan of, but I understand it's truly hard to make a good "native" app. These are rarely cross platform. My previous example "blender" only passes because the interface is so damn weird it doesn't make sense on any platform. But it's consistent and easy to program.
      - jokr004 11y ago
        Well, the text editor has just about as much UI as this calculator thingy, actually I'd say more.. That's why it came to mind as a good comparison. > My previous example "blender" only passes because the interface is so damn weird it doesn't make sense on any platform. Ha I definitely agree with you on that.
rxaxm 11y ago
you should make a flashlight plugin so it can be used from spotlight http://flashlight.nateparrott.com/ http://flashlight.nateparrott.com/
cpursley 11y ago
This would be an awesome mobile app. I'd pay for it.
ummjackson 11y ago
If this had Windows support, I'd be all over it.
J_Darnley 11y ago
Wait, if it is just text then how is it "beautiful"? Don't you need fancy faded images and "creative" scrolling methods for something to be "beautiful"?
unknownzero 11y ago
This looks really nice, I like the fact that I have the history in front of me and editable while I'm using it. Just an idea, it might be more useful to show $9 in EUR instead of $9 in Euro. I foolishly tried to do $9 in Peso, wondered why it wasn't working, figured out I had to do $9 in MXN, had totally forgotten you'd generally want to use the ISO Code.

63 points by daviducolo 11y ago

I was quite happy they asked for the e-mail address after the beta started to download. That is a nice touch and makes me think they are worth giving the e-mail address to.

duiker101 11y ago

Well I opened the link being a bit sceptical but I have to admit it's really nice! well done!

Osmium 11y ago

Looks really nice. I'm a big fan of Soulver[1] too, which is basically a more featureful and less minimalist version of this. I've also tried Calca[2], which seems really good but ultimately didn't replace Soulver for me. On a tangential note, it's really nice to see that the Mac app scene still turns out these kinds of more experimental apps. Long may it continue! [1] http://www.acqualia.com/soulver/ http://www.acqualia.com/soulver/ [2] http://calca.io/ http://calca.io/

nicerobot 11y ago
Soulver is great and is what i use when mobile but I love Calca. I mostly use it in place of a spreadsheet, less as a replacement for a calculator.

quonn 11y ago

Feature request: Inline comments and multiline calculations woulds be nice.

Fannon 11y ago

Looks very nice! Is there something similar for Windows? Or for the linux shell?

JosephRedfern 11y ago
`bc` is similar (ish) under Linux - less "natural" syntax though.
izolate 11y ago
For the linux shell, I just type `python` and do all my calculations in the REPL
hobarrera 11y ago
calc(1) on linux/bsd/etc is pretty good, and will work for most stuff. The "natural language" bit is not present though.

bshimmin 11y ago

This looks really, really nice. But I think a problem for adoption is that on a Mac Spotlight can already do most of the calculations this does that I'd actually want to do on a regular basis (for me, that's currency conversion and some basic arithmetic). I can imagine downloading this, being impressed by its slickness, and then routinely forgetting to use it in favour of Spotlight.

coldtea 11y ago
>But I think a problem for adoption is that on a Mac Spotlight can already do most of the calculations this does that I'd actually want to do on a regular basis Not all, only in one single line, and without memory of previous calculations (I'm sure this has "variables" -- if not Soulver, which is similar, does). Not the same at all. Similar apps already there: Soulver, Calca.
alialkhatib 11y ago
Agreed. I barely use Alfred that much and that's mapped to the similar-but-different option+space (Spotlight is mapped to command+space by default). If this kind of functionality could extend Alfred (or Quicksilver?), there would be no question that this would see relatively regular use from me. If I need to open something, I'm much more likely to open another tab of my browser and dump queries (especially things like exchange/conversion rates) into Google. It's a shame, too, because the demo here is really persuasively showing that this can automatically do stuff I previously assumed necessarily takes an extra brain cycle or two.
- bshimmin 11y ago
  I use Alfred too, almost entirely just to do "Sleep" and "Lock", which Spotlight - for no very good reason - doesn't let you do. If Spotlight could do those, I'd uninstall Alfred: even though it does many wondrous things, I just never remember to use it to do them. I'm certain this app would fall into the same category for me.
  - wingerlang 11y ago

ghshephard 11y ago

Highly recommend Soulver in this category as well - I probably use Soulver 100+ times a day, it's particularly awesome around things like throughput - you can throw things like, "10 kbits/second at 30 days in megabytes" - the sort of stuff people screw up all the time with excel when they forget to multiple by 8 somewhere. It can also do the Currency translation, "1 BTC in USD" And string a bunch of them, to do things like, "$2/square foot in SGD/square meter"

kiiski 11y ago
You can solve all three of those with Wolfram Alpha too, with no need for apps. Seems like Google knows how to solve the last two, but not the first one. Perhaps with some different syntax it would be possible too.
- lobster_johnson 11y ago
  What I like about this app is that there's context and history. I use Spotlight all the time for these conversions, but there's no way for me to keep the last calculations around for reference or reuse; I have to put stuff in a text editor for that, which is a lot more awkward.

jbrooksuk 11y ago

I've been using Numi for a couple of weeks now. It's a really nice way of playing with an algorithm and breaking down each part with variables.

kbd 11y ago

Seems worth mentioning the Frink programming language here: https://futureboy.us/frinkdocs/ https://futureboy.us/frinkdocs/

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

anu_gupta 11y ago

Does this support hex/oct/binary? Doesn't seem to - that would be a very useful addition.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

Skovy 11y ago

You have a typo "You can use sing and word operators." in your first sentence on http://numi.io/docs/ http://numi.io/docs/

acron0 11y ago

Apps for just a single OS _in this day and age_ upset me :( Why is this OSX only? What element of it could only be achieved or expressed on a Mac? Disappointing. I want to use it but I can't.

dharma1 11y ago
Ditto. If this was built with say, Qt, it would be very easy to run everywhere
geekam 11y ago
Not just OSX, it is also just for one single version of OSX (Yosemite) so far.
duaneb 11y ago
I do not think I have ever seen a "beautiful" cross platform app. Maybe blender.
- jokr004 11y ago
  I personally don't use it but I think the Atom[0] text editor is pretty attractive. Really there are plenty of examples, it's not impossible, you can make good looking apps with Qt without too much effort. [0] https://atom.io/ https://atom.io/
  - duaneb 11y ago
    I would argue that a text editor really stretches the definition of user interface. The non-text-editor chrome I am NOT a fan of, but I understand it's truly hard to make a good "native" app. These are rarely cross platform. My previous example "blender" only passes because the interface is so damn weird it doesn't make sense on any platform. But it's consistent and easy to program.
    - jokr004 11y ago
      Well, the text editor has just about as much UI as this calculator thingy, actually I'd say more.. That's why it came to mind as a good comparison. > My previous example "blender" only passes because the interface is so damn weird it doesn't make sense on any platform. Ha I definitely agree with you on that.

rxaxm 11y ago

you should make a flashlight plugin so it can be used from spotlight http://flashlight.nateparrott.com/ http://flashlight.nateparrott.com/

cpursley 11y ago

This would be an awesome mobile app. I'd pay for it.

ummjackson 11y ago

If this had Windows support, I'd be all over it.

J_Darnley 11y ago

Wait, if it is just text then how is it "beautiful"? Don't you need fancy faded images and "creative" scrolling methods for something to be "beautiful"?

unknownzero 11y ago

This looks really nice, I like the fact that I have the history in front of me and editable while I'm using it. Just an idea, it might be more useful to show $9 in EUR instead of $9 in Euro. I foolishly tried to do $9 in Peso, wondered why it wasn't working, figured out I had to do $9 in MXN, had totally forgotten you'd generally want to use the ISO Code.