Track your data use, Dropbox, rewards programs and more with Consume for the iPhone

TNW Quick Hit

Consume is an iPhone and iPod application that will help you to keep track of data and minutes on your phone.

Love It: It’s far more than just phone data. Can also track toll cards, broadband, rewards card and much more.

Hate It: Some users report that it simply doesn’t work.

Overall: 3/5

The Details

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Bjango, the parent company for the Consume application, does one thing really well: they make super-simple iPhone and iPad applications that are infinitely useful. Whether it’s a world clock, a computer-resource monitor or a simple shooting game, Bjango continues to nail it when it comes to the pinpoint-focus applications.

Consume, one of Bjango’s latest free apps, is another success story…at least for the most part. It allows you to track your consumption from over 200 providers. Whether that’s your AT&T data usage, earned frequent flyer miles or even your broadband use from your ISP, consume can measure a wealth of data.

The other interesting thing about Consume is that it manages your account balances by using what it calls Recipes. That recipe is inclusive of whatever steps are required to log in, grab your data and then send it to your phone. As the recipes change (when sites and login methods change), you can create a new version while still saving the old in case of a roll back.

The reviews for Consume show that some people have issues with it, but Bjango is working to rectify them as quickly as possible. For now, we can  only give it a 3 out of 5 score, simply because it doesn’t work for everyone. The up shot of this is that it’s free, s0 if it doesn’t work then you’re at least not out any money.

Consume is available from the App Store and is one of those things that we should probably all use for one reason or another. It’s now updated for iOS and the Retina Display, so graphics should be considerably better than before (though I wasn’t personally able to tell, as I still use an older device).