Soulver – the Calculator for the Rest of Us

Soulver – $25 – App Store

Like many people, I’m no maths whizz. Sure I can do standard multiplication and addition and I’ll even attempt a basic equation if you give me enough time, but I often struggle with things like percentages. And it was with just that in mind that the developers of Soulver decided to bring aid to mathematical knuckle-heads like me.

Soulver is what the developers call a ‘back of the envelope’ calculator. You know the sort of sums – like when you’re sitting in a car dealership desperately trying to work out what the real cost of that new car is. It enables you to phrase your calculations as you’d speak them.

So for instance you can type ‘$175-10%’ to find the markdown on an item, or ’35 as a % of 200′. The app works somewhat like a ready reckoner, keeping a running total of all your calculations at the bottom of the screen, so you can just use it to type in a long list of numbers and get a round total at the end.

Amongst Soulver’s neater features is a built-in realtime currency converter, a realtime calculator for stocks (such as 500AAPL), the use of variables and a full set of mathemetical functions (such as pi or COS). When you’ve finished your calculations you can output them in PDF or HTML format if required.

The natural language design of Soulver is a great way of doing sums without too much head-scratching. You can jot down your calculations as you think of them, labeling items with any text you want to use. If you struggle with real-world arithmetic, then Soulver’s the answer to your prayers. It’s available now in the App Store for $25USD.