HP 12C Financial Calculator 4+

For those of us who grew up using the 12C in business school, and later in business, this is a perfect app. The frustrating part so is that it does not look exactly like the one we've all used. The color is different, the font of the numbers is different, etc.

There were two other knockoffs that did a terrific job which I used because they both looked exactly like the 12C physical calculator that I had and still use. But they disappeared from the App Store, and my assumption is that HP shut them down.

I have no problem giving my money to HP instead of a knockoff. In fact I like to support companies who create great products, and HP created this original product. But I wish that they would provide an option in the Settings menu to view the original look of the physical calculator we've all used for the past 40 years. I'm not sure they appreciate how much of a badge it is to open up that app in a meeting and start using it – there is an enormous "Wow" factor – but that effect only works when the app looks exactly like the original physical calculator. In fact, it's HP's own app that looks like a knock off, that isn't quite the full original.

Easy fix, HP. Make us happy to show off that we have this app, and let us inspire others to buy it from you when they see us use it.

P.S. Props to HP for finally giving us the option to turn off those annoying clicks.

I had this app--or one exactly like it--three or four years ago. It was exactly like an HP 12C in every respect. But then I had to restore everything onto a new iPhone, and all of the financial functionality disappeared. I was left with an, essentially, four function calculator. So I wonder if this is just a technical glitch and the guy who wrote the program is sick/deceased and is not able to read these reviews? That is, maybe he's not aware of the problem. Or maybe he got sued by Hewlett-Packard? But there's something funny going on here for sure.

Erase that! I have found that the fully functional HP 12 C appears when you turn your iPhone sideways. Portrait, you have merely a four function calculator basically. But go to landscape, you get the full function calculator that I had a couple of years ago! Sorry about that but it appears other people have experienced the same "lack of functionality."

This is a near-perfect 12C emulation but it falls short in one major way: it doesn't support copy/paste. Consider this scenario: you're sending an email or text on your phone and you need to do a calculation on a 12C. With a stand-alone calculator, you could read the results from the screen while typing on your phone. Once the 12C becomes an app, unless there's copy/paste, you have to toggle back and forth between the 12C and mail apps, introducing the potential for transcribing error. Other iPhone calculators let you tap on the display area to copy paste info. Not having this is a real oversight.