Enhanced Calculator for S60 in Beta Labs
Published by Rafe Blandford at 14:49 UTC, August 19th 2008
Nokia Beta Labs have released an enhanced calculator for S60. The calculator, which has been ported from Series 40, features standard, scientific and loan modes. A big plus, in standard mode, is the use of the D-pad as shortcuts for the common operators (+, -, × and ÷) which greatly improves the speed of entering calculations.
Here's an extract from Jarmo Lahtinen's post on Beta Labs:
"Have you noticed that even in the latest S60 devices the calculator application is very simple and limited in features? And have you noticed that in Series 40 devices there is a much better calculator application? The calculator in Series 40 devices is a Java application, and we started to think here about replacing the current S60 native calculator with this one. So, I took the source codes of the original Series 40 application and updated it a little bit. The end result is here, Java calculator application for S60 devices!"
The enhanced calculator will work on all QVGA S60 phones.
Three modes: standard, scientific and loan.
The standard calculator can be used without the need to select buttons on screen.
The new calculator is written in Java (rather than native C++); this is because its Series 40 ancestry. On some S60 phones (S60 3.0 especially), there may be a slight lag on start up. However more recent phones should have no such problems (e.g. the N78 was less than a second).
As a reminder here the standard S60 calculator (note how you need to move around with the D-pad to select the operators):
If you're looking for a simple calculator application (and don't think you'll need scientific or advanced modes) then check out Calcium as an alternative.
Categories: Software
Platforms: S60 3rd Edition
News Discussion
Also what’s the point with this java calc when there are tons of alternative calc apps (normal or scientific) out for S60,many which are free...
And yes,Handy Calculator is far better alternative than both this "Enhanced Calc" & the default one...
Many people dont know Lifeblog was written on java and to check that find an 3250 with its oldest firmware u will find the lifeblog uninstalled like the FSC antivirus on N73...when u install it u will find its java...the icon on Application manager is blue.
Now am using my Handy Calendar and am happy but this will be better out of the box.
D-pad operators has been the way to go for over a decade, everywhere but S60. It's hard to believe that a java port of the S40 calculator is worthy of a betalabs release. Just fix it for real, and include in the next decimal S60 release.
God, the fact that Nokia can't be bothered creating a simple native symbian app anymore is depressing ...