Halcyon Calc vs CMCalc
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Halcyon Calc
A powerful calculator app for students, engineers, and scientists. It handles complex numbers, symbolic expressions, unit conversions, and matrix operations, with advanced plotting and programming capabilities.
- Complex number calculations
- Symbolic expression manipulation
- Unit conversion with custom units
- Matrix and vector operations
- Symbolic plotting
- Programming of custom operations
- Statistical data analysis
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For students, engineers, scientists or people who fondly remember classic calculators, Halcyon Calc is a great application for manipulating numbers and even symbolic expressions. Features: - Use this calculator on an iPhone, iPod Touch or an iPad - Use your finger to quickly scroll through the stack to review intermediate results - Copy and paste support - Over 225 built-in operations, including trig, logarithms, real functions, complex operations and more - Allows you to work with real, complex and integer numbers. - Real and complex numbers can be displayed in standard, fixed, scientific and engineering format - Use over 120 built-in units to perform unit conversion or create your own units if the one you want is not already there - Integer numbers can be displayed in decimal, hexadecimal, octal and binary bases - Work with real and complex matrices and vectors. - Enter symbolic expressions and solve them for different values. Even better, solve quadratic formulas, collect and expand factors and terms, find minima, maxima and roots of any expression. - Plot symbolic expressions in X/Y coordinates. Pan the coordinate space by dragging the plot in any direction. Zoom in and out using a pinch gesture. - Determine symbolic derivative, taylor series or numeric integral of an expression. - Store numbers, lists, strings and expressions in symbols. Create hierarchies of symbols to allow you to organize your calculations. - Create sequences of calculator commands into programs, creating your own operations which you can then include in expressions. - Store statistical data and calculate totals, averages, standard deviations, linear regressions, etc over that data. - Calculate the probabilities associated with standard distributions like the normal, F and T distributions.
CMCalc
This app emulates a classic 1980s computer math calculator, offering decimal arithmetic, binary conversions, and logic functions. It supports parentheses for complex calculations and includes modern features like copy/paste and landscape mode.
- Decimal arithmetic
- Binary conversions (decimal, binary, octal, hexadecimal)
- Binary logic functions
- Operator grouping with parentheses
- Hexadecimal input (A-F)
- Copy and paste results/functions
- Landscape mode
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The CMCalc application is a replica of the Casio CM-100 Computer Math Calc solar powered calculator that was sold in the mid 1980’s. It performs simple decimal arithmetic and basic binary conversions (decimal - binary - octal - hexadecimal) and binary logic functions. While it is a standard infix calculator, it supports operator grouping with parentheses. For hexadecimal calculations, the input keys include A through F. CMCalc application performs all the same functions as the calculator, and has the same look as the original. There are a couple features that were not conceivable in the 1980’s on a calculator … such as the ability to copy and paste the results or the entered function, and a landscape mode for devices with 4 inch or larger screens. The face of the calculator can be viewed in two modes including a traditional application style, and a photo replica of the original calculator face.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: CMCalc at Free against Halcyon Calc's $4.99. CMCalc also leads on iOS requirement (12.0 vs 16.6). Halcyon Calc's advantage is update cadence (every 4 months vs every 45 months) and rating (4.9 vs 4.5). On ads, in-app purchases and device support there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
CMCalc is free to download; Halcyon Calc costs $4.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Halcyon Calc holds the better App Store score, 4.9 against 4.5. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 18 and 6 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 100% of Halcyon Calc's written reviews are positive against 75% of CMCalc's.
Halcyon Calc ships an update every 4 months, CMCalc every 45 months. Both last shipped on October 9, 2026.
| Parameter | Halcyon Calc | CMCalc |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $4.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 4.9 (18 ratings) — better | 4.5 (6 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better | 75.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 18 — better | 6 |
| Update frequency | Every 4 months — better | Every 45 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Paid | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 16.6 | 12.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 10 MB | 4 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Halcyon Touch Software | William David |
Customer experience
Halcyon Calc
CMCalc
In-app purchases
Halcyon Calc
No in-app purchases
CMCalc
No in-app purchases









