Alright, let's talk about the most frustrating mystery in the Apple universe.
You spend $1,000 on a sleek iPad. It does everything. It plays movies, edits photos, and runs professional apps. Yet the one thing it can't do? Multiplication. Yep, your cosmic ruler is calculator-less.
Wait, There Really Isn't One?
Open your iPhone calculator. Boom. Right there on the home screen. It's been there since day one.
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Now grab your iPad and search for it. Nothing. Nadda. Zilch. Apple literally built a calculator into iOS but somehow forgot to port it over to iPadOS.
That's not a bug. That's a 12-year-old design choice we're all still scratching our heads about.
So Why Is It Missing?
Apple's answer? The company's famous vague corporate statements. No exciting reason. No timeline. Just... silence.
Theories galore though. Some say Apple thinks the iPhone calculator is too small for iPad's big screen. They'd need to design a whole new version from scratch.
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Others believe Apple wants you to buy third-party apps from the App Store instead. Free market logic, baby.
Apple's Tricky Little Workplace App
Here's a wild twist. Apple did sneak a calculator into their free workplace suite called Workplace.
But here's the kicker. You need a Business ID from a corporate email to download it. So regular humans like you and me? Locked out.
Apple literally created a solution and then put it behind a corporate paywall. Brilliant or evil? You decide.
The Hilarious Workarounds
People go full MacGyver with this problem. Some install the iPhone calculator app through weird tricks.
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Others swipe down to Siri and ask for math. "Hey Siri, what's 15 percent of 200?" Works like a charm.
Some brave souls just fire up Safari and use a web-based calculator like it's 1999 again. Progress!
The Funniest Part of All
Here's the cherry on top. The iPad plays games that require complex math. Video editing apps calculate frame rates. Music production tools crunch audio data.
The iPad can do math all day long in every other context. But hand the user a simple division problem? Nope.
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A device powerful enough to run illustration and coding apps can't give us a two-plus-two button. That's peak comedy.
Mad Libs With the CEO
Remember humor writer Maddox? He literally bought an ad in the New York Post Time to write a funny open letter to Steve Jobs.
The letter basically said, "Dude, just add a calculator." Apple's only response? A polite "workaround" suggestion.
Hilariously, Apple's official help page tells users to sync the iPhone calculator with their iPad. Some kind of joke, we presume.
So there you have it. One of tech's weirdest absurdities still alive today. Keep texting your corrections to SIRI. She doesn't mind doing our homework.