Do I have a calculator on my iPad Air

There is no calculator App included on the iPad.

but there are a gizillion in the app store. many are free.

While the iPad has no default calculator app there are many in the App Store. Search the App Store for calculator and review the many choices. Apps that are free often have advertising. Apps you pay for usually will not have advertising. Also the capabilities of the various calculators will vary. Review the calculators and download or purchase the one that will suit your needs.

I like to keep my device clean and it's sorry that such a basic app is missing from the default stack. What is so different about the OS on my iPad Air that the calculators from the phone or the laptop can't be ported over? Sounds like something in the configuration is not kosher.

Everything is kosher, Apple chose not to include a calculator app. If they did include it this thread would be "How do I delete the calculator app ?" Forget about keeping your iPad clean. The value in a iPad is to use it. Find a nice app and enjoy it.

Some day I will find out the real technical reason it is not there. I can't believe it is a random whim of Apple's. People who have a phone or a laptop want a calculator, but tablet users don't, would be the logic for that decision. Hard to believe.

There are other iPhone iOS apps missing from the iPad, too, besides just the calculator app.

Why is a missing calculator on an iPad have so much ire and irritation to you.

The calculator app had gone missing from iPads since the first iPad, over 6 years, ago!

I don't have any idea of what you mean by having a "clean device"???

You don't install any 3rd party apps on your iDevices? That's what it appears you are saying?

If you want the real reason for its absence, here it is.

The real reason a calculator was never been made available for iPad is Mr. Jobs didn't like any of the larger calculator apps that Apple software and graphic UI designers designed for the iPad.

He didn't like any of them and no calculator app was ever designed to meet his critical design and operational criteria and a properly designed calculator app never made it in time for the initial release of the iPad.

After that time, third party developers jumped and came out with a plethora of really nice looking and nicely functioning calculators for the larger iPad screen.

Since then, Apple designing a calculator app for iOS on an iPad has been and, apparently, continues to be, a very low priority app for Apple design and incorporate some "killer" calculator app for iOS on an iPad.

Apple has had 6 years to develop a native calculator app for iPads, but apparently, this is no longer a priority item for Apple any longer with the proliferation of much better third party calculator app options still out there.

Apple would rather continue to develop iOS for social media with messaging animations and scads of emojis rather than put any of their design resources and time into creating a native calculator app for their iPad lineup.

From their viewpoint, it has been so long and so many other great calculator apps out there, that Apple has just decided not to continue ANY developement and design of an iOS calculator app specifically for iPad.

Apple has had 6 years and 10 iterations and plethora of updates to add a calculator to iPad and just have not done so.

So, just let your issues about this go. There isn't going to be a native calculator app for iPad. There are just too many calculator app alternatives out there for Apple to care about this any longer.

Similar circumstances for missing weather and stock apps on iPads. Better third party alternatives been available for years!

Get over it and Good Luck to you!

No is the answer to the question posed by this discussion. That doesn't make for much of a discussion however. Some of us want to know Why?, or how is this possible? Why have any native apps on the iPad? Why not just make it 100% a la carte?

REALLY???...

I just gave you the real answer!

This IS the REAL answer!

Apple never designed a large size calculator app for iPad because the Apple design team could NOT DESIGN a calculator app that looked like and work like a calculator app that was designed by Apple!

Mr. Jobs always hated the calculator program that came with earlier Mac OSes. The calculator program in Mac OS X always got improved with every new version of OS X.

Mr Jobs wanted the lowly calculator app/program to look and work as great as the rest of the OS and was a big pet peeve of his!

How many different ways you want me to write/state this for you!

Tim Cook even told reporter Charlie Rose why the iPad never got a calculator app!

This was Tim Cook's answer, also!

SImple. Apple couldn't design a large screen calculator app that looked good both in portrait AND landscape mode for the iPad.

Apple wanted their calculator app for iPad to be "unique to Apple" and they couldn't come up with a clear "Apple designed" looking iPad calculator app!

This IS the OFFICIAL answer as to why it has never, as yet, happened!

Apple no longer makes adding a calculator app to iPads a priority any longer!

That IS your answer!

No why's or because's! Whadya three years old?!

There is no other reason than Tim Cook, Sir Jony Ive and Apple's design and software team don't feel a pressing need to create a calculator app any longer.

There are SCADS of great calculator apps for iPad that have been around for 6, count 'em, 6 years!

Pick one you really like and use it, already.

Enough of the whining and ranting about this, already!

The answer is what it is!

It is up to you to accept it as so!

AC