Elk is a fabulous new currency convertor app from the house of Clean Shaven Apps, known for their apps like Dispatch, Clips and Alive. Built with travelers in mind, Elk is designed for super fast and super simple currency conversions. The app works great on the iPhone, but where it really shines is on the Apple Watch.
Elk does away with manual keyboard entries completely, instead relying on swipe, scroll and tap gestures. On iPhone, you see a simple table of values, with the ‘from’ currency on the left and ‘to’ currency on the right. Swipe left to multiply the value by 10 and swipe right to divide by 10. This makes it easy to quickly jump from tens to thousands with two quick swipes. To view intermediate values, simply tap on a number to expand. Phones with 3D Touch can peek and pop too. The app detects your current location and automatically picks up the local currency for you.
Elk also works really well on the Apple Watch. It makes use of the Digital Crown to change values, along with swipe gestures to increase or decrease them by 10s. The app works offline and doesn’t require an active internet connection. You can even set custom values for conversion in the app.
Elk’s simplistic approach to currency conversion is great for moments where you want to quickly get an idea of how much something costs and only have one hand free, typically when you’re shopping on a trip. On the other hand, this also means that precise value conversions are practically impossible with Elk.
Elk is available Free on the App Store with a limited set of currencies unlocked. The Pro version unlocks all currencies as well as the ability to use custom rates and costs just $3.99. To try this out, the developers have included a free 14-day trial too.
