For those who work across countries, whether it’s at a desk or traveling by car, plane, train, or bus, keeping track of local differences can be a bear in mind and preparation. Even the countries of the European Union that have adopted the euro differ in the types of electrical plugs, languages ​​and time zones.

Morpho by Think Tap Work packs all the useful facts and conversions into an app, allowing you to set the countries, currencies, and units of measure you prefer as pinned items or presets. You can find out which AC adapters to pack, the calling country code attached to the SIM card you receive upon arrival, and whether to drive on the left or right side of the road. But you can also use the app to convert imperial units to metric or even convert gigabytes to megabytes.

It is true that you can ask Google and refer to other applications like Soulver or PCalc for some information, notably currency and unit conversions. But Morpho packs it all in one place. Even this desktop warrior, who rarely travels overseas, routinely calculates prices, units of measure, and time zones for items I ship, schedules podcasts, and buys items outside of the US. Morpho makes it easy to find exactly what I need.

Part of the app’s strength lies in customization. You can search its extensive list of units and currencies for kitchen dimensions (cups, liters, tablespoons, etc.), global currencies, fuel consumption figures (e.g. miles per gallon versus kilometers per liter), volume and area , and then select the unit you want to convert to. The units also include power, voltage, shoe size, electric charge, data storage measurements, frequency, angles, and more for less location dependent conversion.

Adding a currency conversion provides both the exchange direction you specify, such as dollars to euros, as well as a list of other options: reverse conversion and common units of measure, such as 5, 10, 25, 50, 100, etc.

You can enter data using the keyboard or use the calculator input panel in the lower left corner of the window. If you want to paste any display value or conversion, Control-click and choose Copy or Copy Full Conversion. For example, when calculating 500 miles to kilometers, the copied full conversion appears on the clipboard as 500 miles is 804.672 kilometers.

The app might even teach you something. For example, did you know that cup measure comes in imperial, standard/regular (drinking), US legal, and metric versions, all of which have slightly different quantities? Me too. Pay attention when choosing such units as Morpho distinguishes them correctly. While testing, I found a bug where the conversion of these measures would throw an error when copying the conversion. Think Tap Work investigated, found that the bug is in the library that Apple provides for conversion values, and reported it to Apple for resolution.

The country section contains a mini-dossier on standards, units of measurement, codes, time zones and other data useful for travelers, those involved in software or website localization, or those who want to make sure they understand how to format correctly information to send to anyone in this country.

In the free version of Morpho, you see a cross-sectional map of other countries, the two-letter ISO code, the country prefix for international calls, and the side people drive on – an extremely useful fact in some places! The Pro variant unlocks currency, AC plug type or types, fuel and distance units, languages ​​spoken (and language name). in this language and its script), as well as the names of all time zones and the current time.

Think Tap Work makes an app for Mac, iPhone, iPad and Watch. The free option on each platform includes ads, limits the number of conversions you can set to eight, updates currency prices daily, and provides only a small amount of information about each country. Try Morpho on this permanently free tier, or take advantage of the 3-day free trial to test Pro features. I recommend the Pro version.

The Pro Upgrade is an in-app purchase that costs $0.49 per month or $3.99 per year, allowing you to subscribe for a short time or inexpensively. A lifetime unlock is also available for $14.99. The Pro version is ad-free, updates currency prices every hour, provides significantly more country-specific information, includes alternate themes and icons, and allows you to save unlimited conversions.

Morpho allows you to travel the world from the comfort of your home or office, and also benefits those who actually travel from country to country. This is a global visualization of literal local values ​​at your fingertips.

With the Mac renaissance in recent years, we want to highlight the tools we use and which readers recommend to get the most out of macOS. Mac Gems highlights great Mac software nuggets, applications that are highly useful, focus on a limited set of problems to solve, and are usually developed by an individual or a small company. Stay tuned for weekly updates and submit your suggestions to the Mac Gems Twitter feed (@mcgems).