Shriya and I are traveling to India for a month and we will be using our unlocked iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4 with local SIM cards there.
Coming from a grand-fathered unlimited data plan on AT&T, we are going to have to watch our data usage with the new SIM cards in India.
If you are traveling overseas or just on the new tiered data plan on AT&T, you are probably already making sure you don’t exceed your data usage limit. You can get a warning from AT&T as you reach certain limits.
But, if you are around town on WiFi and 3G/EDGE alternately you might wonder where you are using data the most on both 3G/EDGE and WiFi. Also, you might want a more customized alerts.
DataMan iPhone app is a simple app that does these functions very well for just $0.99.
The app is iOS 4 compatible and runs in the background to monitor your data usage. You can set customized alerts to get warned by local notifications (just like Push but locally) as you reach certain data limits.
You can set your data usage allowance based on your data plan. You can set monthly, weekly and daily allowance. This is where it varies from the native alerts you get. Set your monthly bill date and it will automatically track your usage for the month.
You can also set 4 different threshold level to get alerts as you reach so much % of your daily, weekly or monthly allowance.
You can see your current usage as well as past usage history. Just select the data range and see the data usage breakdown by EDGE/3G and WiFi. As you can see here I use more data on 3G than WiFi. That’s partly because I am more on my Apple iPad when I am at home than my iPhone.
Since the app tracks data usage just by the monthly bill date you enter, it works with any carrier around the world. You don’t have to login to the carrier website to check your data usage.
Geotag data usage
The app also offers Geotag ability to data usage if you have location services enabled. It uses the new iOS 4 low-power location capability to Geotag without consuming too much battery. But, you can turn off both backgrounding ability and location ability in Settings if you are low on battery.
With AT&T moving to tiered data plans iPhone 4, it is imperative for everyone to monitor their data usage so you don’t go over. An app like Dataman can not only help with that but also it helps to analyze your data usage. For eg. if you are on the habit to listening to podcasts on RSSPlayer app, it would help to download the podcasts while you are connected on WiFi than using data network.
Dataman is an essential app for anyone not on an unmilited data plan. And you will see it’s benefits probably on the first day of spending the $0.99 it costs.
Dataman Promo Code Giveaway – Expired
The kind developer of the DataMan app, Johnny , has given 4 extra promo codes that we can giveaway to our lucky readers. Here’s how you can win one of these promo codes worth $0.99 each.
Entering to win one of the promo codes is simple as with all TiR giveaways. Just do one or all of the following
- Leave a comment in this post (with a valid email address so I can email you the code. We will not use your email for anything else. We promise!) – 1 entry
- Tweet this message on Twitter – 1 entry
”Retweet this for a chance to win 1 of 4 DataMan iPhone app promo codes ($0.99) from @TopiPhone http://wp.me/phByp-1lM“ - Become a fan on TiR Facebook page and leave a comment there mentioning you want to win this app. – 1 entry
- Subscribe to TiR RSS feed – 1 entry.
Leave a comment with your entries. You gain 4 entries if you do all 4.
We’ll randomly select and announce the winners by the end of the day today here and on Twitter. Good luck!
Winners Announced
Hayden, Saravan (comments), @dannyrodri & @Darren_Mann (Twitter)
Stay tuned for more giveaways and contests here.
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
Availability: App Store
Price: $0.99
Reviewed at version: 2.0
Developer: XVision
