This app does only one thing: splitting meal bills

There is a lot to be said for an app with a single function, and that is what makes the Tab app so special. Tab is a bill splitting app that only splits meal bills among a group of people. It does nothing more than that.

I was introduced to the app by my friends. We were fed up with doing basic math so the five or six people at the table could each pay their fair, after many dinners and debates over who ordered an extra side of fries, who got three beers instead of two, and who just had an hors d'oeuvre in lieu of an The Tab app was the new one. It was appealing due to the ease of signing up new guests, the items we ordered, and the tip.

One person pays for the app with either cash or credit. They take a picture of the bill and send it to an itemized version in the app. The person in charge of the bill gives a code to the group. Anyone who wants to join the bill can do so from the main screen, even if they don't have an account. Everyone chooses a nickname and then they go to the itemized bill and order what they want. Tab allows more than one person to choose the same item if there is a dish that needs to be split among multiple people. The app will calculate what each person owes after tax and tip. The person in charge of the bill has the power to change the tip.

After seeing their total, each person is given a choice of paying the bill in cash or over the phone. If you enable permission for Tab, the person in charge of the bill will be paid by Tab. The person in charge of the bill is the one who has to collect the money. It's finished! It took less than a minute for everyone to put their card down after the bill was handed to us. The app's math was more trustworthy than ours. Each time we pulled out the Tab app, it became a mini-celebration because we all loved it.

As much as we praise the app, my friends and I recently found out that Tab couldn't connect to the payment service. When I select the Venmo option at the end of a bill, it will open and then freeze on the permission page. We now have to manually send the amount to the person who paid.

Tab gave me a time frame on when or if this will be fixed. A person who has yet to respond when asked for their name said that attempts to get in touch with someone at Venmo have gone unanswered. The third-party developer support seems to have been completely deprioritized by Venom. In the meantime, we can work around this glitch by simply making note of our totals in-app and then manually paying the bill. The extra step isn't a deal-breaker, but it does make us less excited.

The best thing about this app is that you don't have to register to use it. My friends and I have never made an account. It's very easy to join the bill if the people with you have the app on their phone. Should there be a discrepancy or a mistake, having an account will allow you to save it and revisit it. We are okay with trusting this app to sort it all out for us if your group is like mine.