Revealed: your iPhone’s secret travel hack
Apple’s latest iOS software update contains a hidden currency conversion tool.

The next time you’re headed overseas, online shopping at an international website or in any other way trying to juggle currency conversions, just reach for your iPhone and fire up the Calculator app.
Yes, the same humble Calculator that’s been coming to the aid of the mathematically-challenged since the iPhone was launched back in 2007.
As part of Apple’s most recent iOS 18 software update – which your iPhone is almost certainly running – the Calculator app gained the hidden superpower of currency conversion.
This puts instant currency conversions at your fingertips, without the need to pay for a dedicated app on the App Store.
And not just currencies, mind you: the Calculator can now also juggle length, weight, temperate, volume, energy, speed, pressure and more.
This amazingly versatile mode is turned off by default, but once you discover how handy it is, you’ll want to leave it switched on all the time.
To put the iPhone’s Calculator into Conversion mode, tap the calculator icon button at the bottom left of the app’s screen.
A set of pop-up options reveals a new Convert button at the bottom of this panel.
Slide this to the right to switch your Calculator into conversion mode. You’ll now see two rows of numbers atop the standard grid of calculator buttons.
Tap the up/down indicator just to the right of the numbers to see the wealth of unit conversions available.
With Currency mode selected, scroll through the list of currencies or quickly find a particular currency in the Search box atop the screen.
By tapping the up-down arrows at the left side of the readout you can easily swap between conversions - useful for moving from AUD-HKD to HKD-AUD, for example.
The currency rates are supplied by Yahoo! Financre, and updated every hour.
None of this stops you from using the Ccalculator app as a normal calculator.
You can add, subtract, multiple or divide as usual, it’s just that those operations will be expressed as your chosen home currency.
And if you'd rather be hands free, the Siri voice assistant can also convert between popular currencies: just phrase your question along the lines of “Hey Siri, what’s 100 Australian dollars in British Pounds?”
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08 Feb 2018
Total posts 171
That’s handy!
08 May 2020
Total posts 53
Wow, how did i not know about this!
11 Mar 2012
Total posts 315
Great advice. TYVM!
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