App of the day: DataMan, essential for travellers and data cap sufferers

In a connected age data really is everything, but you try telling that to your cut price carrier who didn’t explain the true limit of their data provision when you signed the dotted line. You try telling that to your carrier when you go abroad and end up getting stung with a big data bill.

What you gonna do?

Sure, you can follow all the advice you’ll find about how to control your iOS usage when you travel, but sometimes you still need bandwidth between Wi-Fi access points, such as when you’re trying to figure out how to reach your hotel. How can you keep track of your data use?

The answer is to use an app called DataMan for iOS 10. First published in 2013 the software tracks all the apps you have installed on your iPhone and monitors how much cellular data they are using. It will alert you at points you ask it to, and shows you exactly which apps are devouring your data (it only monitors your cellular data usage).

It’s a great way to keep your data usage under control – it even provides a useful forecasting tool, and may even help you identify any apps that you didn’t know were using any data at all.

A perfect tool for the job

What I like about the app is it’s clarity – it uses color to help you quickly detect when you may be having a data use problem. That matters because it means you can check your data use quickly, allowing you to focus on more productive and/or interesting stuff. Easy and clear it almost makes checking how much data allowance you’ve used up fun, and gets out of the way effortlessly once its task is done. This makes it a perfect tool for the job.

There are two versions including Data and Stopwatch widgets for iOS 10, with the $4.99 pro version providing 3D Touch support and a watchOS 3 app that provides the same information in a single glance. Compare them here