Currency Is A Beautiful And Simple Converter For Your iPhone

Currency - Simple Converter ($0.99) by Simple Simple is the perfect aid for those who frequently travel abroad, or deal with multiple forms of currency on a daily basis.

I often need a currency converter on hand, because while I don’t travel abroad, I do find things I want to buy online that are sold overseas. So when I first noticed Currency, I knew I had to give it a try. As you may already have noticed, I am a sucker for well designed apps, and it’s even sweeter when the app itself is so minimal, yet functional. And fortunately, you can find both of these in Currency – Simple Converter. They couldn’t have said it better with their name, right?

Currency features a flat user interface, which seems to be the latest trend in iOS apps (think Letterpress). Love it or hate it, you have to admit that for this app, it works. The layout is also intuitive for users, featuring the currency you want to convert at the top, a list of favorites below, along with the search feature, and the keypad for inputting amounts. Every currency type will show a custom designed flag icon, so it’s easy to recognize what country’s currency you’re dealing with. The entire app is gesture based, so while it’s a bit confusing at first, it will all become second nature with regular use.

Before you start using the app, you may want to edit the Favorites list. Currently, by default, the app has several of the more popular currencies in this list. If you don’t want a specific currency, just swipe left on it to delete it. To add one to your favorites list, just search through the database of over 160 available currencies and find the one you want, then give it a single tap — it will be placed at the top of the favorites list. Unfortunately, there’s no way (from what I can tell) to reorder your favorites, but I hope that this can be made possible in a future update.

To enter in an amount to be converted, just slide the keypad up from the bottom, or tap on the top currency. Enter in the amount you want, and the first foreign currency in your list will update automatically as you type, so there’s no need to hit return or anything, which is very convenient. To reveal all of your favorites and their conversions, just slide the keypad down. You can also switch the base currency with one of your favorites with a single tap, and vice versa.

In case you are seriously OCD about reordering your favorites, you can keep changing the base currency, since the previous one will always appear at the top of the favorites list.

Now, you may be a bit confused as to how to clear the amounts you’ve entered, since there’s no delete button on the keypad (that’s just one big button for the zero). Instead, Currency uses gestures to delete digits, as well as bringing back what you got rid of. To delete, just push the digits off of the screen (towards the right). If you want to bring them back, just pull it back (to the left). I found that this is a much easier way than just using buttons, and it’s definitely a nice change.

Finally, one of the nicest features of Currency is the fact that you can get charts for the converted currency’s value over the next six months. While other currency apps, like Banca, only give you the basic conversions, it’s nice to see how inflation (or deflation) will affect the value of your money over time.

Currency is also completely offline, so you don’t need a data connection when abroad to convert your money. This is super nice to have, since data abroad can definitely be expensive.

I’m enjoying using Currency so far, and if you frequently travel or need to convert money on a daily (or even just sometimes) basis, then this is a very handy app to have. It’s also beautiful and intuitive — what’s not to like? If you’re in need of a currency converter, I highly recommend you check out Currency – Simple Converter. Grab it for your iPhone in the App Store for $0.99 (the introductory half off price).