Calculator App Issues in iOS 18

AnnieCJ5 wrote:

After the update, I cannot use my calculator.

What do you mean you can't use it? What specific problems are you having? Most people are not unable to use Calculator, they just don't like the changes. If Calculator actually isn't working for you, if it won't open or something similar, that may well be a different problem.

What are we supposed to do? I can do it on a piece of paper, but isn’t that what a Calculator is for when you’re out and about and you don’t have paper and pen.

Learn to do math in your head? Seriously, though, you can always download a different calculator.

Yes yes yes. Did they hand over calculator design to a math-anxious second grader? My very first pocket calculator (which cost me $59 in 1980 dollars!!) had more functions and a more usable interface than this. At the very least, it should have:

-option to display calculations as we go, like an adding machine tape, for checking back on a sequence of operations

-suddenly need to press = EVERY TIME when adding a column of numbers

-changing to scientific notation without user request to do so

lame, lame, lame. Anyone who uses a calculator would know better. Hey, did AI design it??

now I have to go find my 3d party app I deleted, all excited, when Apple announced there would be a calculator in iPadOS 18 😠

DaveSic wrote:

When I multiply 80 times 175,000 the answer is 1.4e7

what the heck is that?

Scientific notation shorthand. 1.4 times 10 to the 7th power, or 14,000,000.

Just add zeros to the right, then move the decimal point 7 digits to the right. Basic 7th grade science and math.

I used the repeating “=“ operations to calculate compound interest over a few periods. No point of pulling up a separate tool or switching modes if you need to run it for 3 to 5 periods. I use this multiple times a day. Forced to download a different calculator and abandon the built-in one. Can we at least have a setting to control this behavior?

MikeEdwards85 wrote:

Does anyone know a different app that allows the equals sign to apply the same operation? I find it disturbing that my calculator of 30 years ago in primary school is now more user friendly. Is this the end of Apple? It’s like the soviet union’s final years…..

My guess is that Apple responded to thousands of complaints that the way the calculator worked meant that if you accidentally hit “=“ twice it wiped out your calculation and you had to start over. I’ve been responding to those posts for years.

m0riarty wrote:

I was hoping I was missing something on this update. I used to be able to hit the equals button multiple times to repeat a calculation, and now I can’t. So…. The update made the calculator worse?

this doesn’t make sense

Whether or not it's "worse" is a matter of personal opinion, not objective fact. That function of the equal key caused a lot of issues for a lot of people. Apple apparently decided there were more of them than there are people who liked the feature. But, not to worry, there are lots of other calculator apps out there. There have been multiple recommendations in this thread.

Michael Jarosz1 wrote:

"the change was in request to thousands or millions of users who HATED the old calculator:"

What's your source for this? I'm genuinely curious.

Because while looking for information on what happened to the calculator in iOS 18, I couldn't find any complaints about the original behaviour. This was/is standard calculator behaviour around the world that's not unique to Apple. Anyone who learned how to use a calculator in school should be familiar with what repeated presses of the equal button does.

And if Apple suddenly wants to deviate from the norm, it should at least be a setting that can be toggled.

If you didn’t find any complaints you didn’t look far enough. I’ve been fielding complaints for years, specifically that accidentally pressing = twice meant that the result was lost. Generally Apple responds to Feedback when there are a lot of similar requests. It’s a guess as to the number of complaints, but it takes a lot for Apple to make a change like this.

Look4j14 wrote:

Apple,

Please go back to the original function. I use this every day to keep track of my bank transactions. Having to hit = every time I calculate an equations is time consuming and costly should you forget. Why did you install this change?! What was the benefit?!

::sigh:: Doesn’t ANYONE ever read what has already been posted in a thread before posting, anymore?

The benefit is to all of those users who for years have complained that if they accidentally hit = twice they lose their results.

nnson wrote:

I hate this update to the calculator app so much. I used to lend my child my iPhone when he needed to use a calculator, but now I had to buy a real calculator for him because now the app is so unusable. Why do I need to press the back button multi times just to reset the calculator? Before I just need to tap AC. Why does when I press + or x for the second time, the calculator doesn’t show the result of the first addition/multiplication but show the full equation instead? It’s just so unusable…

Because huge numbers of users over several years complained to Apple that if they accidentally hit a key twice the lost their calculation in progress.

There are thousands of calculator apps in the app store, and I’m sure you can find one that exactly matches the way you expect a calculator to work.

What in the Sam **** were they thinking when changing the original Calculator App?!?!?! They literally took everything that made the apple calculator SPECIAL- away! They copied Androids Calculator with all the extra annoying running numbers up top. That is far and away from the sleek, simple, clean branding Apple is known for. The running equals is gone. The swipe away number from screen, gone. Running add with equals and callback last number with equals, gone, gone, all gone. All the beautiful things they had on the ORIGINAL Calculator, the coolness of flipping the phone for scientific, is now replaced with a ugly block of a calculator on the bottom left. Do these aesthetics and block calculations look and feel like APPLE? No they don't. Feels like a nightmare, triggering our OCD, when the business world needs simple, cool, on brand. We love the text a head feature on the new iOS...but the calculator...for real??? Why?!

What we hope for is: a way to convert to the old calculator from the new calculator. (Probably going to be the most expensive and dev coordinated effort-but they should have never touched the old calc anyways and saved their money, time, and effort.) How everything functioned with the swipe, flip, equals, call back with equals was spectacular. Who in the world asked for the calculator change??? NO ONE! I'm looking at all the community, and it was a handful, vs thousands of folks online complaining about the new calculator. A second way to fix this is to give the Original version of the calculator as a download in the app store, instead of letting us choose third party apps that don't have the look and feel of the old one. Call it "Calculator 0" (Zero) or something to differentiate.

What they should have done was build the history on top of the old calculator. Two or three finger swipe down (from top of the screen) to toggle history window and new extra features on top. Simple, sleek, and makes tactile sense. Enlarge the basic OG calculator for the ipads, for presentations, and they would have had applause and accolades...but no, that's not what happened.

Make the Apple Calculator Great Again? Everyone in the Office is literally going out to buy calculators to do running adds on millions of transactions, lmao...cause of the Apple calculator change. Literally no difference in apple and androids...we not Android. Someone remind Apple! lol The frustration of not getting the right totals, can't copy and paste without the "e" was one of my co-workers issues. Just everything. This must be the new math era in schools, where people don't know what functionality in the real world is useful, created a calculator- and told Apple users to deal with it cause it's on the new iOS.

When Apple Calculator was Great...

What TF happened??? Oh, Apple trying to trigger our eyes for... um... history complaints? RIP users with OCD.

My attempt to be honest and funny at the same time. Hope they get this right next few updates. Apple...leave the calculator ALONE.

We is the almost 700 folks saying “me too” on this thread. Everyone with an iPhone in our office, mostly accountants and sales folks that are in the credit card industry. If you go online and look at the YouTube vids on it, and countless Facebook threads.

I’m going to ask, do you use the calculator for your work life everyday? Why did you choose Apple in the first place? Did you use the swipe features to delete numbers? Did you use the equals add feature. Did you use the equals recall feature? Mainly, my questions are going to ask, did you use the old calculator for work each day as we do?

If you like the new one better, please, in detail what IS better? Why? Maybe I’m missing something.

EmkayLA wrote:

They have made the calculator virtually unusable!!

Actually, it was changed because huge numbers of users complained to Apple that the old calculator was “virtually unusable”, so they modified it to solve the complaints of those users.

If you are specific about what you find “virtually unusable” perhaps other users can suggest how to make it more usable. And report what version of iOS you have: 18.3 and 18.3.1 made some significant changes in how the calculator works

Actually, I don’t believe that anybody can find ANY Grievances or Gripes about the Pre-iOS 18 calculator (that would be iOS 17 and below calculator) … The only place I hear of there ever having been any iOS 17 calculator

Gripes are only located RIGHT-HERE on this forum (the Calculator App Issues in iOS 18 forum). 

So – WHERE are those HUGE numbers of users with iOS 17 calculator Gripes?  Why can nobody Google them and find them?  I think “they never existed”.

If someone really wants the Apple CEO to get involved, then do a Google search for the name and mailing address of the CEO and lets FLOOD him with old-fashion USPS mail.  I’ll bet that he can get it fixed.  I actually tried to post his name/address, but the orators of this forum Censored it -- for me trying to publish his address. 

SO – LOOK IT UP FOR YOURSELF (it ain't hard) and start the letters till the iOS 18 Calculator is “fixed”

back to its iOS 17 state. AMEN

CrankyFrank2 wrote:

SO – LOOK IT UP FOR YOURSELF (it ain't hard) and start the letters till the iOS 18 Calculator is “fixed”

back to its iOS 17 state.

Or, you could just find a calculator app that doesn't upset you. There are lots in the App Store. Of course, if you enjoy being cranky, writing complaint letters is as good a hobby as any, I suppose.

On my iPhone 18.3.1 I calculated the following

ln(0.01)/20 giving -0.230...

I then computed e^x for this value but

it computed e^0.230... instead and put the - sign in front of the answer to get

-1.258... . I guess it thinks it is handling the precedence of applying e to the value before negation takes place, that is, 0 - e^(0.230...). My

iMac computes it properly.