iOS calculator: Apple fixes annoying omission
Apple had removed a useful feature from the Calculator app in iOS 18. It's finally back with iOS 18.3.
Apple computer on the iPhone: Small change under iOS 18.3, big effect.
(Image: Apple / Mac & i)
Sometimes Apple makes such massive changes to the operation or functionality of traditional programs from one operating system version to the next that there are waves of protest in social networks and forums. Above all, users then don't understand why the company made the change or even omitted it in the first place. Users are all the happier when Apple reverses the change. A current example: the calculator app under iOS 18, where Apple inexplicably removed a repeat function when switching from iOS 17 to iOS 18 in September. A good four months later, it is now back.
Simple function, great relief
In iOS 17, the Calculator still had a function that was once familiar from physical calculators: Clicking on the equals sign simply performed the last calculation step again. This is something you want to do more often in everyday life: if you enter 2 times 2 and press =, for example, 4 appears. If you press = again, the 4 is multiplied by 2 again (result: 8) – and so on. But Apple simply turned this off in iOS 18. You could press the equals sign as often as you liked: nothing happened.
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With the release of iOS 18.3 this week, Apple has now had mercy on users who had previously complained extensively on X and even in the Apple forum: the function is back. As is typical of Apple, there is no reference to this in the update package insert; the improvement was discovered by users themselves. The version of the calculator app implemented with iPadOS 18 finally also on the tablet also had the problem. Here, too, the recalculation at the touch of a button will be added in iPadOS 18.3.
Not all removed functions are back
However, iOS 18.3 does not revive another feature: the option to delete individual digits in the input with a swipe gesture. The swipe to the left now only shows the history, which is rarely needed in everyday life.
It is unclear why Apple has also removed this as part of iOS 18. It is conceivable that when the iPad version was created, the iPhone version was also subjected to a “feature review” – with the corresponding consequences. — In addition to using Apple's official forum, which employees also seem to check occasionally – frustrated users can also use the product feedback form on Apple.com. You can leave comments about products there.
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