I’ve actually used it in a number of situations and have nothing but praise for its implementation. The third gem is the new widget which pops up in Notification Centre. The widget naturally doesn’t use the custom layouts from the app itself, but it’s really handy and accessible in situations where I don’t want to or can’t take the time to open up the app itself. The only downside is that Handoff support in iOS 8 is still a little bit finicky - sometimes it just refuses to work. I’ve actually had a few situations where this worked out perfectly. Handoff - one of iOS 8’s new features - means that I can start my calculations on my iPhone and should I choose to pick up my iPad, a little icon will appear on the lockscreen, allowing me to continue where I left off. The two other new features that got me hooked are support for Handoff and PCalc’s widget.
![pcalc change font pcalc change font](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/31HFA03wTDo/maxresdefault.jpg)
![pcalc change font pcalc change font](http://wpuploads.appadvice.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/PCalc-for-iPad-1.jpg)
Oh, layouts can sync via iCloud to other iPhones and iPads. Setting up their functions is just a few taps away and extremely intuitive. The default labelling is also exactly what I was expecting and needed no adjustments on my part.
![pcalc change font pcalc change font](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Y_pTZ49Icow/maxresdefault.jpg)
Adding them was as simple has entering edit mode by holding down a finger on any button, deleting the default buttons and adding empty ones in their place. If you look at the photo at the top of this page you will see that I’ve dedicated the two top rows for just that and picked four currencies which I’ll need - Indian Rupees, Polish Zloty, American Dollars and Euros. Since I’ll be travelling soon, I’ve already set myself up with various currency conversions which I had to do in my head last year. It’s possible to change their look, layout, functions, size and more. The first big thing is the ability to totally customise the look of every single button. I could probably write a book about it, but instead, I’ll just focus on three things which got me hooked. James has managed to cram an astounding amount of functions into its small UI that should suit even the most demanding of users. PCalc seems simple at first glance, but it can been anything you want it to be - that’s the beauty of the product. I used to have various converters to translate feet into metres, Fahrenheit into Celsius and so forth, but today PCalc has me covered.
![pcalc change font pcalc change font](https://www.iclarified.com/images/news/52159/247134/247134-64.png)
I currently run three different “calculators” on my home screen - Soulver, which I use to write up various expenses when I don’t want to open Numbers, Percentage Calculator for people who can’t do maths which I favour when splitting the bill with friends and when trying to figure out tips, and PCalc for when I actually need to get some maths done. I’ve been lucky enough to beta test it for a while now and I can quite frankly say that the new 3.3 build, which supports iOS 8 and it’s new features, is my favourite version. It was in the App Store on day one and it did very well, according to its maker. PCalc has been available in various forms and on different platforms for more than two decades - James Thomson, the man behind it, has taken care to keep it updated over the years, transitioning quickly to new operating systems when they came out.