On the eve of the 100th episode of MacTalk's Podcast, this week we look at Consume, Bjango's phone and internet usage app, and Chase The Dot, a dot chasing time-waster for your iPhone.
Consume
There's no shortage of phone and internet quota/usage apps on the App Store. Consume (the latest creation to come from marc and the team at Bjango), however, is different. It sports a much simpler, cleaner and far more aesthetically pleasing user interface than all of the others put together, without losing any of the functionality that the other apps tout as major features. Best of all, it's got support for just about all of the major carriers in Australia.
Let's start with user interface. Consume really wins me over here. For internet usage, you're presented with three big bars - one for peak usage, one for off-peak usage and one for time passed. It's couldn't be any easier to check how much data you've chewed up, and how much data is left. It even calculates the amount of data you can use per day for the rest of the month based on current figures. For phone usage, the same applies (except, obviously, calls and messages replace peak data usage, as shown in the screenshots). Consume supports multiple accounts, and displays these similarly to Apple's Weather app. Just slide across the screen to get to a different account.
Setup was easy enough for my Westnet, Optus and Virgin Broadband accounts (aside from completely forgetting my online account password). Once completed, it's easy to get a quick overview of your consumption across all your different accounts. Hopefully in the future, Consume will support more and more carriers here and abroad, making it available for international iPhone users too.
What makes Consume most unique is the way that it delivers carrier information. Using 'Recipes', it essentially means that if a carrier changes the way it transfers usage data (which it inevitably will every so often), Consume can fix it without submitting an update to the App Store Rejection Review Team. Features like this, combined with ease-of-use and a gorgeous UI make Consume a brilliant usage monitoring app for your iPhone, and one that I would recommend to anyone looking for a strong monitor for the iPhone.
Version reviewed: 1.0
Price: $2.49
Developer: Bjango
App Store
Chase The Dot
Chase The Dot, from Microlemon, follows the concept of chasing a dot on your iPhone's screen by tapping your finger on it when it appears. Simple enough in it's own right, the game features a variety of different levels of difficulty and challenge (there are at least a handful of variations on the game). Some involve placing two fingers on screen at the same time (using the iPhone's fabulous multi-touch capabilities, of course) while others ask you to avoid red dots that appear on screen to trick you into tapping them. My personal favourite is the "Clingy" mode of play, requiring you to follow the dot by holding down your finger/thumb as it jumps around the screen.
While you're in the app, you can browse through some pretty cool and very minimalist menus that allow you to change the way you play, and it include the*Plus+ online leaderboards and awards, joining dozens of other games from ngmoco
and other high profile developers. I've been using the Plus+ network with a few games that support it recently, and I must say, it seems to be the best online iPhone game community I've had the opportunity to play with so far. While it still requires yet another sign-up process, Plus+ is reliable, fast and easy-to-use - Chase The Dot is another fun game you can add to your Plus+ library.
Whether you enjoy Chase The Dot or not is really quite dependent on what you think of the concept in general, and your own experience with the game. I've seen friends of mine play the game and love it, fast becoming addicted to it's unique gameplay, while others are begging to play something else after just a few minutes. In my own time with the game, I've found something I like about it, and I have to admit, I've been playing it at least once or twice a day since then. Considering it costs you nothing, loads quickly and could become one of your favourite games of all time, it's definitely worth a try.
Version reviewed: 1.3
Price: Free
Developer: Microlemen
App Store
iPhone App Reviews - Consume, Chase The Dot