iCrapps

A quick search of the App Store turns up at least 17 tip calculators, not including multi-purpose calculators. Two of them, Tip Calc & Tipper, appear to be identical. We also have some name confusion, with applications called TipCalc and Tip Calc.

One developer actually has the guts to charge $0.99 for two applications that do nothing more than display a picture on your screen, iRepublican and iDemocrat. This proves that Apple doesn’t bother checking out the applications they accept for the store.

Rating: 4 craps

OK, I’ll admit that I didn’t actually buy it, but this screenshot tells me all I need to know about it. The day-glo colors and jumble of buttons make my eyes bleed. This looks like the software equivalent of “Manos: the Hands of Fate”.

Rating: 4 craps

Suppose you’re visiting a foreign country where they use the Metric system and measure temperature in Celsius but you only know Fahrenheit. The weather report says the temperature will be 20º C but you’re wondering whether you should dress for hot or cold weather.

You just happen to have Go Figure Lite on your trusty iPhone so you open it and go to temperature conversion. You attempt to enter 20 using the slider, but the slightest nudge moves it from -15.14 to 98.13. Luckily you can double tap to bring up a keypad. When you finally manage to enter 20, it tells you that the equivalent is 93.6º F, so you dress for a heat wave only to find that it was 68F. Interestingly if you go the other way, entering 68F properly converts it to 20C.

Rating: 3 craps

After loading up my iPhone with lots of free apps, I discovered that most of them just plain suck. This is the place for bad reviews of crappy applications.