Release Notes

The permanent changelog for Ans. The newest version is listed first.

1.4

• Ans now accepts values sent from Ans Graph. Send a result across from the graph and it arrives on the calculator’s input line, ready to be used in the next calculation. Nothing is worked out on arrival: the value simply sits there as though you had typed it, and it changes no answer, memory or stored variable until you press a key. On iPhone, iPad and Mac.
• Paste on iPhone and iPad. Hold the display and choose Paste to bring a whole expression in from another app — the same thing ⌘V has always done on the Mac, which until now had no equivalent on a phone.
• Powers of ten now survive the journey in both directions. A pasted ×10^ is the same power-of-ten the key gives you, so a value arriving as 1×10⁻⁵ stays scientific instead of turning back into a fraction — and a result you copy from Ans, such as 6.02E23, can now be pasted straight back in.

1.3.1 — Mac only

• Ans now appears when you search Spotlight for calculator. It was only ever findable by name before, which is little help if you have forgotten what the app is called.
• The menu bar showed two View menus. It now shows one, holding angle mode, result display, the accessibility options and Keep in Front.

Version 1.3 remains the current release on iPhone and iPad: they already appear in Spotlight under calculator, and the menu bar is a Mac-only surface.

1.3

• A Quick Tour shows SHIFT, VAR, keeping and using variables, holding VAR to open the Variable Explorer and browse physics constants, and switching between fractions and decimals — demonstrated on the calculator itself, with the keys pressing as you watch. It is offered once on a fresh install and is always available from Settings. On iPhone and iPad; on the Mac, Help covers the same ground.
• Choose from 15 built-in physics constants when setting a variable — including the speed of light, Planck constant and particle masses. Values follow the 2022 CODATA recommendations; choosing one also gives the variable a helpful label.
• With Haptic Feedback on, VAR now responds lightly as you touch it and gives a firmer confirmation when a short hold opens the Variable Explorer.
• Help has grown with it: what each ERROR means and how to get your expression back, percentages and random numbers, and typing with a keyboard.

1.2

• Large SHIFT and VAR Labels is a new option that moves each key’s second function onto the key itself, at full size, while that mode is on. Press SHIFT and the orange functions move onto their keys; press VAR and the teal variable letters do the same. The key’s usual function takes its place in the small label above it, so nothing goes unnamed.
• Settings now gathers this and Large Display Text under an Accessibility heading, on both iPhone/iPad and Mac. On the Mac they are in the View menu as well.
• Both options are off by default and do not change how the calculator works.

1.1

• Ans came to Mac — a real desk calculator in a compact window that can keep itself in front of the document you are working in. One purchase covers iPhone, iPad and Mac; there is nothing further to buy.
• On the Mac: type calculations straight from the keyboard, hold ⇧ while clicking a key for its shifted function and ⌥ for its variable, paste a whole expression with ⌘V, and open all six variables in their own window with ⇧⌘V.
• Factorials, on SHIFT ) — so 8!÷(3!×5!) is one line of keys. ! also works from a hardware keyboard and in pasted expressions.
• Key presses now respond with feedback matched to what the key does.

1.0

Initial release.

• A full scientific calculator with the feel of a dedicated device: real keys, a two-line display, and instant response.
• Exact mathematics — fractions stay fractions, and π is kept exact, so ⅓ × 3 is exactly 1.
• Complete function set: trigonometry, logarithms, powers, roots of any degree, powers of ten and random numbers.
• Six variables with names, a variable editor, and independent memory keys.
• Replay earlier calculations and edit any expression in place.
• Hardware keyboard support on iPad.
• Home Screen and Lock Screen widgets keep the latest answer close; Home Screen widgets can page through recent completed calculations with calculator-style ▲ and ▼ keys without opening Ans.
• A Control Centre control opens Ans in one tap.
• No ads, no subscriptions, no tracking — and it works entirely offline.

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