Focus Stacks vs DB48X
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Focus Stacks
Organize your tasks and ideas with a visually appealing, card-based system. Capture everything, customize with colors, add detailed notes, and sync across devices. Never let a task or idea slip away again.
- Capture every task easily
- Customize lists with colors
- Attach detailed notes to tasks
- Automatic iCloud syncing
- Card-based design
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Unleash the power of your productivity and never let another brilliant idea or must-do task slip through the cracks again! Imagine a world where every movie you've been dying to watch, every spark of inspiration for your next groundbreaking project, and every little to-do is neatly organized, not just in your mind, but right at your fingertips. Our app is crafted for the list-makers, the planners, the doers — those who thrive on keeping life seamlessly organized both at work and at home. Dive into a digital oasis of calm with our card-based design, where clutter is banished and your tasks come to life in a visually stunning, easy-to-navigate space. Say goodbye to mental overload and hello to clear, focused stacks that are as satisfying to use as they are effective. Here's what makes Focus Stacks a must-have: • Capture every task with ease, ensuring nothing important gets forgotten. • Customize your lists with a rainbow of colors to make your productivity system not only efficient but also uniquely yours. • Attach detailed notes to your tasks, from vital phone numbers to extended thoughts, making sure every piece of information is just a tap away. • With automatic, secure syncing with iCloud, your Stacks are always up-to-date across all your devices, safeguarding your progress and ideas wherever you go.
DB48X
This advanced scientific calculator offers arbitrary precision computations, RPN and algebraic operations, and extensive graphing capabilities. It supports complex numbers, matrices, symbolic calculations, and over 1000 built-in functions, inspired by the HP48 series.
- Arbitrary precision computations
- RPN and algebraic operations
- Complex numbers, vectors, and matrices
- Symbolic computations and numerical solving
- Graphing and plotting
- Engineering units and currency conversion
- Built-in hyperlinked help system
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DB48X is a new high-precision scientific calculator inspired by the legendary HP48 series from Hewlett-Packard. It is not an emulator, but a redesign from scratch, which is faster, and delivers never seen before capabilities like computations in arbitrary precision. Like the original HP48, DB48X supports an unlimited stack, RPN and algebraic operations, complex numbers, based numbers, vectors, matrices, text, symbolic computations, numerical solving and integration, graphing and plotting, statistics, engineering units, and well over 1000 built-in functions. DB48X adds several HP50G capabilities, including a library of equations and constants covering mathematics, physics or chemistry. Using modern technologies, DB48X goes well beyond the original HP48 in many ways: - It is significantly faster, uses less memory, and features a higher-resolution 240x400 pixels graphical display. - Integer and decimal values can have an arbitrarily large number of digits, so you can compute log(pi) with 200 digits in a few keystrokes. - The six function keys feature up to three function per key, giving quick access to up to 18 related functions at a time. - Complex numbers can mix and match polar and rectangular form. - Symbolic operations extend to complex numbers, vectors and matrices. - Based numbers can be in any base from 2 to 36, and support any number of bits, making it easy to emulate a 23-bit or 512-bit processor. - Text is represented using Unicode instead of the proprietary HP encoding, facilitating data exchange with the rest of the world. - Multiple graphs can be distinguished using bitmap patterns (DB50X adds the ability to use colors) - Engineering units include all the modern evolutions of the SI system, and can be configured by the user, e.g. to integrate currency units with the exchange rate du jour. Converting between USD/hour and EUR/day has never been so easy! - A built-in hyperlinked help system documents functions simply by holding the corresponding key, and combine a quick start guide, a user manual and a reference manual. DB48X will run many user RPL programs as is. However, since it is not an emulator, it will not run any HP binary object, and notably will not run HP48 games or anything involving system RPL. DB48X is part of a family of compatible RPL calculators that include the free DB40X and the color DB50X.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is update cadence: Focus Stacks at weekly against DB48X's every 3 weeks. Focus Stacks also leads on rating (5.0 vs 4.8). DB48X's advantage is ratings volume (4 vs 1) and iOS requirement (14.0 vs 17.0). On price, ads, in-app purchases and monetization model 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
Focus Stacks costs $4.99 and DB48X $4.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Focus Stacks holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.8. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 1 and 4 respectively.
Focus Stacks ships an update weekly, DB48X every 3 weeks. The most recent releases landed on September 6, 2026 and September 10, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Focus Stacks | DB48X |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $4.99 | $4.99 |
| Rating | 5.0 (1 ratings) — better | 4.8 (4 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | — | 100.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 1 | 4 — better |
| Update frequency | Weekly — better | Every 3 weeks |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Paid | Paid |
| Devices | iPhone, Vision Pro | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 17.0 | 14.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 1 MB | 7 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Andrew Despres | Christophe de Dinechin |
Customer experience
Focus Stacks
DB48X
In-app purchases
Focus Stacks
No in-app purchases
DB48X
No in-app purchases









