I have to carry out currency conversations multiple times a day. As someone who works from India and interacts with businesses and clients all over the world, currency conversion becomes a very integral part of what I do. And I’m sure there are several other folks out there who’re in the same boat. Even dealing with the new technology gadgets that are released in the US, currency conversions become necessary for every step of the transaction. For all my conversions, I was using Convertbot by Tapbots. It was a great app, but lately has pretty much been abandoned by the bots. The last update to the app was in July 2010, which added Retina Display support. I’ve gone through a few different currency convertors available on the App Store, but couldn’t settle on one. But then I came across Currency.
Currency is a delightfully simple currency convertor designed and developed by Alex Penny and Matt Davenport. It has a beautiful & flat user interface that looks very impressive. It makes currency conversions very easy to work with. In the app, you have one source or base currency and multiple converted currencies or ‘favorites’. In my case, I can easily convert a value between USD-GBP-EUR-INR. As you type the value using the number pad that slides in & out from the bottom, the conversions happen on the fly. To change the source currency, simply tap the currency you want to set as the base and it’ll swap places. To add more currencies, simply drag the 2nd row down to reveal a search field. The app supports over 160 worldwide currencies and even has great looking country flags to go along. To clear a currency, swipe the cell away from the right to left.
Currency makes use of gestures to improve the experience that the app offers. To clear the value you’ve typed, simply swipe from left to right. To undo, swipe the other way. Unlike most other apps, Currency doesn’t clear the entire string but instead, clears each number one by one. So you can swipe slowly to delete/undo the last typed number in the field. The animation that illustrates this is mind blowing. The numbers are pushed towards the edge as you swipe from left to right. As the last numeral doesn’t have any more place, it pops out from the top and disappears. You have to see this, it’s incredible.
Currency always stays updated with the latest values, but also includes an offline mode. The number pad also has a button to reveal a chart of how the currency value has been doing over the last 6 months. The app is gorgeous and has quickly become my goto currency convertor. It’s available on the App Store for $0.99.