Back in October we brought you news on Level, a real-time money meter app that wants to be the Fitbit for personal spending. And we were impressed.
For launch, however, the US-only service was restricted to iOS, but today that’s set to change with the roll-out of its first Android app.
To recap, Level links up with your bank account(s) to deliver real-time metrics on your spending, savings and general financial standing. It’s not about sticking all your purchases in categories, such as ‘travel’ and ‘groceries’. There are other services for that.
Level automatically analyses and calculates a user’s total income, recurring bills and recommended savings each month. Based on this, it delivers the spendable balance broken down by day, week and month. And every time a transaction is complete, these numbers are updated accordingly. Purchase a coffee with your debit card? The app knows, and updates your budget for the day.
Level levels up on Android
We managed to grab a hands-on with the Android incarnation ahead of today’s launch and, while the company claims it intends to deliver a “unified and consistent service experience” across all platforms, there are inherent differences between iOS and Android.
For instance, Level for Android introduces a widget that gives a summary of a user’s daily, weekly, or monthly spendable income. This means they don’t have to open the app without opening it.
Additionally, the app not only works with Android smartphones, but it’s been optimized for 7″ and 10″ tablets too, whereas the iOS incarnation remains optimized for iPhones and iPod touches only.
Interestingly, Level for Android will work in landscape view on all devices, whereas iOS has been restricted to portrait only.
Other Android-specific tweaks have also been employed here, including button interactions (the baked-in Android ‘menu’ button gives access to settings, for example), alerts and screen transitions.
Though many apps hit iOS first, it’s good to see Level arrive for Android only a few months later – the wait can often be much, much longer, if it arrives at all.
“We’ve heard from our members and we knew we couldn’t stay single-platform for long,” explains Level CEO and Co-Founder Jake Fuentes. “Android is an incredible ecosystem and a natural next step.”
In our previous chat with Fuentes for the iOS launch, he said:
“Our generation doesn’t think about money the way our parents do. We need a totally new approach to finance that’s mobile-first, radically simple, and completely effortless. Budgeting is dead, and that’s why we’ve taken the ‘quantified self’ approach’; instead of applying the technology to personal fitness, we’re applying it to personal finance.”
Yes, Level is striving to be like Fitbit…but for the personal-finance market. And the Android incarnation should be going live shortly.
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