[IP] Panther's Calculator is a Bad Joke (A Rant)
Begin forwarded message:
From: Richard Outerbridge <outer@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: August 9, 2004 12:26:38 PM EDT
To: tips2003@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Cc: David Farber <dave@xxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Panther's Calculator is a Bad Joke (A Rant)
The flagship Calculator application that ships with Apple's Panther is
so sick as to be shameful. Two examples:
From basic mode enter 12,000,000. Go to Convert->Area... Choose
"From: Square Inch" and "To: Acre". Press OK.
The displayed result is zero (0). Press '='. The displayed result is
1.44. The correct answer is actually 1.91307009488827.
Go to View->Advanced. Try "10000/(2^32)". The displayed result is
454.5454545454546^32. Press '='. Nothing changes.
The correct answer is actually 0.00000232830643.
This could be the first piece of software that someone (that is, Apple)
could get sued for, disclaimers of fit-for-purpose,
blah, blah, blah, all to the side. It's utterly unreliable, yet
seemingly so simple, basic and user-friendly!
Apple should make a special out-of-band update to their Calculator, if
only to avoid the embarrassment of a prospective
Windows switcher finding he can't get a Macintosh to even do basic math
correctly, let alone relying on it for doing any
"serious" day-to-day work.
Richard Outerbridge
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