As more and more cellphone owners are herded from unlimited data plans into the capped data plans, keeping tabs on how much you’ve used your phone this month is an increasingly urgent task. If you go over any of your monthly limits — calling minutes, text messages or data — you’ll pay overage charges.
Now, I’ve always believed that part of the carriers’ scheme is opacity. They don’t want you to know how many minutes you’ve used of your monthly allotment, how many texts you’ve sent or how much data you’ve used. After all: If you knew where you stood, you’d be less likely to go over your limits and pay extra.
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Of course, your usage information is available — if you’re willing to burrow into a Web site and log in with some password you made up the day you bought the phone, or memorize a special dialing code that generates a cryptic text-message usage report.
The trouble is, these techniques require you to remember to do them. I’d guess that very few people have made it a habit to use them. (Besides, the text-message code — #DATA* or whatever — reveals only your data for the month, not calling minutes.)
But the other day, I stumbled onto the My Verizon app for iPhone. There it is, on a single screen: crystal-clear bar graphs for Calls, Texts and Data. If you’re on a family plan, as I am, you can swipe your finger across the screen to flip to each other family member’s information.
Everybody should have this: a way to quickly, visually and easily see how close you are to your monthly limits. This app also clearly displays the details of your current plan, shows your current bill and even lets you pay it.
(Further kudos to Verizon for its latest My Verizon Web site. In one place, it offers 16 clean, clear buttons that take you directly to the things you’d most want to do: “View Usage.” “Change Plans.” “Block Calls and Messages.” “Suspend Service.” And so on.)
As it turns out, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile offer very similar apps. All four carriers offer the app for Android, and all but T-Mobile for the iPhone. (T-Mobile doesn’t offer the iPhone.)
I think it’s commendable that the carriers took this step. Now, I don’t really see why a “how much you’ve used this month” feature can’t be built right into the phone — but the next best thing is an app that clearly shows you this information with a simple tap.
Even here, though, I have a beef: The Sprint and Verizon apps don’t show you your usage until you type in your full phone number (or username) and password! Every time you open the app!
That’s insane, for two reasons.
First, why should I have to enter my phone number? The app knows my phone number. It’s running on the phone issued to me by the carrier, with a number it gave me. Surely it can figure out the phone number of the phone it’s on!
It’s as though every time you swiped your credit card to make a purchase, you also had to type in your 16-digit credit card account number.
Second, even if the app could store my phone number, why should I have to enter my password? Security, yes, I know — but for what? In case an evil office co-worker sneaks up, grabs the phone from my drawer, scuttles away and looks up how many text messages I’ve sent this month? Heaven help us!
The solution is simple: Let me decide whether I want to store my password or not. That’s how the T-Mobile and AT&T apps work. They can memorize both your User ID and your password, and the world hasn’t ended. So what’s the harm?
The beauty of usage apps is that they remove the roadblocks between you and seeing where you stand this month. So why should they install new roadblocks in the form of this phone number/password business? (Tip: In the Verizon app, I’ve used the iPhone’s text-shortcuts feature to type out my phone number when I type “vz,” so at least that’s half the battle. But the shortcut feature doesn’t work in password boxes.)
Even the carriers themselves aren’t sure why all the security is required just to check your usage for the month. (“Why is this necessary? That’s a good point,” wrote Sprint’s P.R. person. “I don’t have an answer, other than to say that we are always looking at ways to enhance customer experience.”)
Until they come up with a good answer, here’s a tip: Get a usage-tracking app from somebody else.
For Android phones, DroidStats displays usage graphs for minutes, text messages and data, all on a single screen. It does what the carriers’ apps should have done all along: shows you, instantly, your current data usage and minutes-used tallies. No username, password or red tape.
For iPhone, there’s DataMan and VoiceMan. The Pro versions, 50 percent off until Sunday (now $1 and $2), are well worth the money. They show you which apps are eating up how much data, and they give you real-time automated alerts when you hit certain warning thresholds that you set up. Voice Man is even smart enough not to include evening and weekend calls if those calls are free, as they are on most plans.
I wish DataMan and VoiceMan would track your text messages, too; that’s coming, says the developer. (A rival app, Cell Minute Tracker, is free and shows all three stats — minutes, texts and data — but it’s for AT&T only.)
The bottom line: It’s your information. It’s important information — you’ll pay dearly if you exceed your allotments. So you shouldn’t have to battle to get at it.