Tip Calculators have been on iTunes since Day 1, and there are currently almost 100 of them. I must admit that I used to think that they were a little silly. I can definitely see using an iPhone to help you figure out a tip, but can't you just use the built-in Calculator app? Last week the folks at Quetouch Apps sent me a review copy of their
$2 TipBox app, and I have to admit, I now understand that these apps can be useful.
The basic function of TipBox is to calculate a tip. In the preferences, you set your preferred tip amount; I use 20%. When you get your bill, just enter the amount of the bill and the app will tell you how much to tip. It is fast and simple. What I find even more useful is the easy ability to divide the bill between multiple diners. Just tap to enter the number of diners and the app will divide the bill for you. For example, as this screen shows, if my bill is $156.84 it only takes me a second for TipBox to tell me that the three diners should each pitch in about $63. It would have taken me a lot longer to figure that out in my head.
If you want to be complicated about splitting the bill, you can also quickly use a slider to tell the app how much of your bill was for drinks and the number of drinkers, and this way the drinkers can pay their fair share of the food and drinks and the non-drinkers just pay their share of the food.
The app has other features, such as allowing you to compute a tip pre-tax and allowing you to enter a default tax rate, but those don't strike me as things that I would use.
The drawbacks? This app only works in landscape mode, and I wish the number keys were just a little bigger. I took a quick look at some of the other tip calculators on iTunes (although I didn't download any of them) and this app seems to include the same features that others have. Many of the others are in portrait mode, so if that is your personal preference you might want to look at another one. Other than that, TipBox is a nice app that I can see being useful the next time you need to figure out the tip, especially if you are going Dutch* and want to save yourself the trouble of doing math in your head after a nice meal (especially one that involves a lot of drinks).
Click here to get TipBox ($1.99): 
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* It never occured to me that there might be anything derogatory about the phrase "going Dutch" until I read the Wikipedia entry on the phrase. Apparently the phrase was coined in England during the Anglo-Dutch wars based on a stereotype of the Dutch being selfish. Ironically, in Egypt, the practice is called Englizy, which translates into "English style". Some of my best friends are from the Netherlands, so I certainly hope that I have never offended anyone by using the phrase going Dutch, and if I did they should just point out that in Thailand, the same pratice is called อเมริกันแชร์ which means "American Share." So there.
