TipCalc was Danny Goodman’s restaurant-bill calculator for the original iPhone. The archived page at this July 5, 2007 URL identifies a Safari-based application, rather than an App Store download. It accepted food and tax amounts, calculated a tip and total, and divided the result between diners.
A small task suited to the first iPhone
Apple’s June 2007 developer announcement described third-party iPhone applications built with web standards and accessed through Safari. TipCalc fits that early approach: open a focused page, enter a few numbers and get an answer while the bill is still on the table.
The original description said the page retained preferences for different gratuity methods and could continue calculating after it had loaded, even without a connection. That is a historical claim about this web app, not a guarantee about modern Safari caching or reopening the old site today.
The tip basis changes the answer
A tip percentage is only meaningful alongside the amount it applies to. For an illustrative bill with $80 of food and $8 of tax, a 20 percent tip on the food is $16. The resulting $104 total divided equally between four people is $26 each. Applying the same percentage to the $88 subtotal instead gives a $17.60 tip and a different split.
That example explains why a saved calculation preference mattered. Diners still had to agree on the basis, whether a service charge was already included and whether an equal split was appropriate. The arithmetic does not settle those choices; it makes their consequences visible.
Finding the original, not a namesake
The source links Goodman’s dannyg.com/iphone/tipCalc address. This newly written archive article does not establish that the old page remains usable, and no current-device test was performed. Treat unrelated apps called TipCalc as separate products unless their publisher is verified. Explore our app archive for more tools from the early iPhone web.