Your IPad Actually Has a Built-in Calculator
It’s been 14 years since Apple released the iPad and it still doesn’t come with a calculator app. While the iPhone and Mac have it , the iPad does not. But who needs a calculator on the iPad when you have a few easy ways to count like a pro?
Just use Spotlight
Spotlight Search has a built-in calculator that works on your iPhone, Mac and, of course, iPad. You can launch Spotlight on iPad by swiping down from the home screen, or by using the Command + Spacebar shortcut if you’re using a tablet with a hardware keyboard. With Spotlight on screen, simply enter the calculations you want to perform and it will display the results. The Spotlight calculator can do addition, subtraction, division, multiplication, percentages, exponents and more.
If you know the correct syntax, you can easily perform many calculations right from Spotlight. For example, 5⁴ should be entered as 5^4; when you do this, Spotlight will show you the correct result.
Ask Siri to count
Spotlight is great at calculations, but for basic calculations Siri is much faster. You can ask Siri to do any basic math pretty easily, and in my tests it gets results much faster on the iPad. If Siri can hear you correctly, you can perform calculations in a jiffy.
Try searching online
If Spotlight or Siri don’t work for you, try using a search engine like Google, DuckDuckGo or Kagi. Just enter the calculation in the search bar and all these search engines will show you the correct results.
Download the calculator app
Some people simply need to have a dedicated calculator app. If you want one, you can get one of many great options on the App Store. We like the following calculator apps:
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Calzy ($5): One of the best calculator apps for iPad. Supports SlideOver, Split View and has a neat memory area for reusing numeric values.
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PCalc ($10): Feature-rich, highly customizable calculator.
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MyScript Calculator ($3): Great for solving equations.
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Soulver ($3): Lets you use natural language by matching words and numbers to make calculations.
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PhotoMath : Take photos of math problems and get step-by-step solutions.