Software Review: MyTip v3.0

Restaurant Tip Calculator, Plus a Whole Lot More... 

At a restaurant, my least favorite task is figuring out the bill and what to tip. I don’t want to under tip excellent service or give away my car for poor service.  I always find myself asking “Do you think $x.xx is okay?” Different areas around the world also have “expected” rates in regards to tipping. Your usual generous tip offerings at your local neighborhood pub may seem like chump change in another city.

Romanian developer and publisher aBs JMicro brings MyTip to the table. MyTip is a nifty restaurant tip and tax calculator as well as a bill splitter. With MyTip you can calculate an appropriate tip by inputting the bill, taxes and tips as a percentage. The application will even help split the bill between your dining party. Now you can look like a big shot as you whip out your BlackBerry, for yet another reason, in front of your envious friends (pffft like you even need a reason…)

I just finished my meal and about to get the bill, so let’s see MyTip in action.

Figuring out the bill

I’ll be the first to admit it. The first time I laid my eyes upon MyTip, I couldn’t help but think about Seinfeld. Jerry gave his dad Morty a Wizard organizer, which Morty referred to as a tip calculator.

“Dad, it’s got lots of other functions..”  I’m sure we’ve all had similar conversations in regards to explaining the omnipotent BlackBerry. Now despite the fact aBs jMicro’s site states that the current version is 2.0, it is actually 3.0. Me thinks SOMEONE should update their site, especially when they say MyTip “Also supports the newest devices like 7100g,7100t,7100v,7100r,7290, 7520”.  My Tip is compatible with the 81xx, 83xx and 88xx series. As we open the application, we find the following categories; Start, Settings, Help, About and Exit. Most of the MyTip’s magic is found in the Start and Settings. 

In the Start menu you can input the Bill amount, number of people in your party, the tax percentage and tip percentage. As you begin to input the bill amount, you will see the menu expand, as it automatically calculates the total bill including tips and taxes. As you do so, the “Persons” field is automatically computed as 1, so you may have to edit this. MyTip will also evenly split the bill between your party. This may not be seen as a good thing in some users’ eyes, especially if you order a garden salad and someone else orders a steak and lobster. I believe aBs jMicro wanted to make MyTip simple and effective, as figuring out each and every item on the menu is quite time consuming. I can’t determine if the even splitting is a negative, as it is up to each user.

If you want to edit the persons, tips and taxes, you have to highlight the numbers already entered, enter the correct numbers and then delete the original entry. For example, as I said before, the number of persons is set to 1. To change it to say 8, highlight the 1 and enter the 8. It should now read 81. Delete the 1 and you now have the correct number of people. This is a bit of a pain in my opinion.

If you don’t want to have to enter tax and tip percentages every time, you can set them in the Settings menu. MyTip will use these entries as a base when crunching the numbers. 

With MyTip 3.0 you now have a tip database consisting of 111 cities around the world. Selecting a city will now give you a suggestion tip percentage to calculate. Tip amounts will differ, whether you’re in Vancouver or Kuala Lumpur. The tip database will also give you information on hotel, taxi and restaurant tipping, such as “tips of 10% are automatically added to the bill”. This makes MyTip a MUST for travelers as it gives you a heads up for the city you are visiting. The only downfall is that you will have to scroll through all 111 cities to get to Zurich. You can’t use any shortcuts. 

My Tips for MyTip

MyTip 3.0 is a versatile application. The application attempts to minimize button pressing by automatically calculating the final results for you as you go. The fact that the Tip Database gives you such detailed information for a specific city is huge. It goes to show that MyTip is a powerful tool, hiding behind a shroud of simplicity. MyTip is available for only $11.95 at the CrackBerry store. Since I calculated the tip, I should pay the bill….um…. I forgot my wallet. I wonder if MyTip could calculate how many dishes I need to wash…?

Pros

• Automatic calculations save time
• Tip Database, including hotel, restaurant and taxi rates for 111 cities around the world!!
• Base tax and tip percentages “set it and forget it”

Cons

• No currency conversion
• Splits bill evenly (a con unless it’s agreed upon by the party)
• Cannot easily erase preset entries

Download

• Purchase MyTip v3.0 from ShopCrackBerry  >>