Here’s a common scenario. A few friends – let’s say five – dine at a restaurant. They enjoy a good meal, maybe order a few appetizers and drinks, a good wine, dessert usually is indulged, and one or two friends order especially expensive items off the menu, like the Veal sautéed with prosciutto de Parma and provolone cheese. After a few good laughs the bill comes and everyone starts mentally calculating their individual costs, some confusion ensues, and cash starts collecting in wild, inconsistent piles. Or, more usually in a fine restaurant, everyone plunks down his credit card onto a separate check, and all that is left to figure out is who owes what on the tip.

Tipulator by Tap Tap Tap is a tip calculator adorned in a festive mint julep color and that signature red and white restaurant mint served usually in glass bowls on the hostess stand. For $1.99 Tipulator offers you what QuikTip does for free, just in a more cheery and, at times, more cumbersome format. The interface is clean and jovial, with the check amount, tip amount, and total laid in descending rows, with even a Party amount, so you have the option of dividing the tip among 2 – 25 people. The tip percentage is a bit more extended, it ranging from 0 – 50% – in other words, from absolute scrimping to absolute generosity. I particularly liked how Tipulator automatically calculated the tip and total when typing in the check amount, so users may see the changes in action.

Some other reviews viewed the scrolling mechanism Tipulator employs as cumbersome compared to a simple typing in option. While I do agree with this consternation, I admit when changing the tip option through the scrolling tab, it’s nice to see the tip amount and bill total change automatically and easily in a whirring of numbers for you. For sheer showiness, I can see how some people may like this feature. Besides, it doesn’t add that many more steps, or taps, to cycle through. However, when it comes to the total, you have the option of selecting an exact amount, or rounding up or down, rounding the tip up or down, and even a bizarre palindrome option. I would have much preferred a few simple buttons along the bottom that noted either “round up” or “round down,” and frankly, when it comes to simple rounding, that’s easily achieved through a second of your brain’s mental acuity. Or at least it should. Maybe it’s a bit shameful that Tipulator assumes we would need a no-brainer rounding option. Or maybe it’s shameful because it’s largely true for many people.

On a last note, the party amount option – to split the tip among a group of people – would be a fantastic option if it took into account the oftentimes disparity between different menu orders. Since Javier, let’s call him, ordered the Veal, and Josie only ordered the small Caesar salad – a much cheaper order than Veal – she shouldn’t have to pay as much tip as he. However, Tipulator allocates the tip evenly between the party, assuming even generosity among its members, despite Josie paying a mere $10 for her dinner of greens.

For its cheeriness and bright interface, Tipulator is certainly a cute and useful app to have, but for its excessive options – palindrome? – and ineffective tip dividing selection, it seems more suited for showing off than putting to use. For $1.99 I would maybe buy Tipulator, or maybe instead download a free tipping calculator and focus on calculating divided tip percentages in my head.