After a nice meal at a restaurant, what’s the consistently most irritating thing? Waiting for a server to bring the bill, even when they’ve been very attentive while you ate. The second most irritating thing is splitting the bill, particularly when people insist on doing it based on items ordered, rather than an even split. (Yes, we’re looking at the person who ordered three drinks and Lobster Thermidor when the rest of us had water and a cheeseburger.)
The requirements to use Split Bill with Apple Cash appear in the title: you have to have Apple Cash set up on your device, and you reach it from Siri mode in the Camera app, which limits its use to the United States.
Here’s how to split a bill (with Apple Cash):
- Point Siri at a bill. It should automatically recognize it.
- If it does, the Split Bill with Apple Cash button appears. Tap it.
- Tap the items you purchased. You can adjust elements, including quantity. So if there were four orders of potato wedges, and you’re paying for three of them, you can express that.
- If the tip doesn’t appear on the receipt, you can tap to enter it, then only your share is shown.
- As you change item selection or quantity, your percentage of tax and the total automatically update. The tip may work in one of two ways:
- If the tip has been filled in, your percentage is shown and automatically updated as you choose your items from the bill.
- If the tip hasn’t yet been filled in, you can tap the quantity to the right of the Tip label and set the percentage or amount you want to add as a tip.
The baffling part of Split Bill with Apple Cash is nearly as annoying as waiting for the bill—the system lets you figure out only your split. It doesn’t let you or everyone tag what they ordered and give you a summary of each person’s share of food, tax, and tip.
For that, we would turn to an app, or something like the notepad calculator Soulver, which in version 4 added a relatively straightforward bill splitter.
