iPhone Tips

I’m enjoying version 2.0 of the iPhone OS, which ushered in the era of third party apps.

I spoke about a few early favorites in a previous post, to which I would add the following:

• VisuaRadio & Liveradio, great Internet radio apps
• Shazam & Midomi, magical apps that identify music that’s playing around you or that you hum yourself
• PocketGuitar, unplayable but beautifully done, and cheap, so what the hell
• Tris, great Tetris clone (removed from AppStore for legal reasons)
• Sol Free, a great free Solitaire, and
• Koi Pond, zen and gorgeous

And now for the Tips part of this post.

There’s a lot of crap on the AppStore, a few gems, and some clear trends (games, for instance).

But one of the most crowded categories is a surprising one: Tip Calculators.

As of this writing, there are about 25 of them on the AppStore.

I have to wonder why anyone would download a free tip calculator, let alone pay for one.

For one thing, the iPhone comes with a regular calculator.

And despite being somewhat of a math retard, I have no trouble mentally calculating tips (in multiples of 5%, say).

I guess a tip calculator is a simple project for a developer who wants to learn to code iPhone apps.

But do people actually try/buy/use their programs?! And if so, why?! To be sure they don’t over tip by a couple of cents?

The world is a decidedly strange place.