Brought to you by the same folks who developed Translator for the Palm Pre, the Currency Converter app on the Palm Pre lets you convert between currencies from a very wide range of countries. It uses the Yahoo service, which is both comprehensive and accurate. The basic home screen presents you with an input field and a choice of two currencies (to and from). You can swap your conversion direction with a simple tap on the button in between. The input field accepts pretty large denominations so you won’t be left in the cold when you’re traveling to countries with large denominations. The selection of currencies is truly enormous and you should have no fear that any of your specific countries will be left out. Unfortunately, there’s no way to set favorite currencies for those who travel to selected destination frequently.
The Currency Converter app for the Pre comes with caching – so the app doesn’t call to the server every time you do a conversion. It saves the conversion rate for a set period before reloading it. You can change this reload rate in the preferences menu and clear the cache through the top menu drop-down. Options regarding the reload rate range from every five minutes to every week – you’ll probably want to go with something in-between, perhaps every 12 to 24 hours. Anything faster will be network and battery intensive for no noticeable gain. Finally, the best option is the “shake to reload” option that updates the cached rates when you shake your Palm Pre. This may appear gimmicky at first, but it’s very useful in saving unnecessary calls to the server, as long as you remember to shake your smartphone every time you use this app. A function and simple Palm Pre app that every traveler will find invaluable.
