Why don't the touch scopes have a calculator app?
Because that's not within the scope (pun intended).
Sometimes, it may look useful to have one device that does it all. But normally, multilple specialist devices will do it better. This holds in particular for a calculator because good calculators are actually not that simple.
Finally, that is how the dreaded bloat starts. You begin with something that looks reasonably small, simple and useful. But more feature requests will come in. And then, you end up with crap.
Whenever you build something that is used by people, it is absolutely certain that someone will come to you and ask "couldn't it also do X?" while someone else will ask you "couldn't it also do Y?". You have to tell them "no, that would be another product, let's keep this one simple and efficient".
It's funny: In another thread, people recently complained about bloat, and in this thread they go in exactly the opposite direction.
Why don't the touch scopes have a calculator app?
Just would be so handy from time to time..
I'd rather see a scope that gave me access to a full Linux desktop where I can install the tools of my choice.
Fascinating idea ... an instrument that is not hardwired for a particular purpose but that can be tasked with whatever the user wants and that runs a full general-purpose OS ... wait a minute. That's been around for decades. It's called a PC. So ... if you don't need a scope but a PC, why do you use a scope and not a digitizer card?
You cannot just take an oscilloscope and install "tools of your choice" because that would spur the question how these tools would interact (1) with each other and (2) with the rest of the system. Example: what should happen when a trigger is detected while the user is using a custom tool, but a second tool is configured to come to the foreground when a trigger is detected? This question sounds simple, but it is not. The result might not be what the user wants. We know from other extendable systems how difficult it is to design a system where all parts (which are not known at design time because they don't exist yet) interact nicely even without having been designed for doing so.