Did you read my article about the cool cellular data usage management features in Android and wish you could have something similar for your iPhone? You can, but it’s not from Apple. It’s an app called DataMan, from programmer Johnny Ixe…
Want to keep an eye on your cellular data usage, but can’t figure out how to do so with the iPhone? For all that Apple’s done a fantastic job evolving its already slick operating system, it’s surprising that there are some aspects that are just poorly designed. Chief among them is managing your cellular data usage. My guess: All the iOS developers in Apple have unlimited plans so they can’t even imagine needing to keep an eye on usage?
Be that as it may, there are a lot of solutions, but they’re from third party app developers. Ranging from free to a few bucks, they offer different ways you can sync with your cellular provider bill then track usage and be warned before you blow past your data plan and end up with overage charges. I decided to check out DataMan Pro, a $5.99 app from Johnny Ixe that offers all the key features and capabilities. In addition, it can show data usage by location and by app – the latter of which is surprisingly useful!
Let’s get started! First time you launch the app, you’ll need to set up your billing cycle and data limits…
Note that throughout this tutorial I’ve chopped up the screens to make them more easily displayed here on the Web. The ones on your iPhone will look the same, they’ll just sprawl across the entire screen rather than these more compact versions!
Tap on “Next” to proceed.
So what’s the beginning of your billing cycle? And how much data have you used in this latest cycle? There’s a trick to getting this, and it depends on carrier. Try calling * D A T A or * D A T A # from your iPhone. Note I said “call”. Dial that sequence as if it’s a phone number for it to work. It should generate the following sort of text message:
There’s a fair amount of data here on this three line shared data plan, but for right now what we need to know is that the billing cycle starts on 7/24/17 (that is, starts on the 24th of each month), that the entire data plan is 31,263MB or 31.2GB, and that today, 7/6/17, we’ve collectively used 8.07GB of data, mostly from line two.
Use the start date of your own billing cycle to enter the first screen’s info, and tap “Next” to be able to enter your data cap:
Since I have a big data allocation, I’ve decided to use a figure a bit lower than my actual data cap: 25GB instead of 32GB. Not necessary, but it highlights the only limitation in DataMan Pro and every other cell data usage monitor: They don’t know how to work with multiple lines that share a pool of allocated data bandwidth.
This becomes far more obvious on the next screen when it’s time to enter the amount of data used in the current billing cycle:
Notice it’s in MB, not GB as the previous screen prompts for, but the bigger question is: should you enter data usage for this line, or for all lines? I opted for just this line and decided that the other lines would each be allocated a straight 1/3 of the total 31GB for analysis and monitoring purposes. Which means, of course, that I have a lot of unused bandwidth:
A few days later I’m creeping up to my bandwidth allocation and I’ve changed both the background color and chosen the more detailed stat view:
With the detailed view I can see what percentage of the usage is uploading versus downloading, which can be handy. What’s more useful, though, is that you can actually view cellular data usage by app:
I found this particularly interesting because the third app on the screen, Tunity, shouldn’t have been running and so was a bit troubling. In fact, it was so troubling that I deleted the app until it learns to play nice: if it’s not running, it shouldn’t touch the Internet, particularly through a cellular connection. You can also look by time and by location, as suggested by the bottom tabs on that screen.
And, finally, if you’re really obsessed with your data usage, you can have your current percentage shown as a badge on the app icon itself:
So that’s it. Easy, simple, powerful and while DataMan Pro doesn’t have much smarts in terms of a shared data account across multiple lines, it’s still wayyyy better than anything Apple offers to help us iPhone users understand and manage our cellular data usage.
DataMan Pro, $5.99 at the Apple iTunes Store. From Johnny Ixe.