Today, I’m reviewing aCar, an application that allows you to monitor and record all of your car’s servicing, fuel and general costs.

Well, where do I start? This application is quite possibly the most fully-featured car-based app I’ve ever used on Android. And the best part is that 90% of the functionality is completely free!

Let’s get the basics out of the way first – fill ups. aCar records all your fill ups, along with what brand of fuel you used, the octane rating, total cost, cost per litre etc etc!

Once you’ve got a few fill ups under your belt it will then be able to give you detailed statistics on how much your car is costing you on fuel, and how much you’ve spent in a month, last month and over the past 3 months.

It’s quite amazing just how detailed this app is, and this review only scratches the surface of the functionaility available.

Another neat feature is the ability to keep a service record for your car too. Want to change the oil? Record the date and cost and aCar will keep track of that too, AND will give you a reminder at an interval you define to let you know it’s due again!

My only gripe is that because the app has so many features, it can be quite easy to get lost in there (it took me a good half an hour of playing about before I was 100% on what I was doing) but this is the only problem I can really find with it, and once you have got to grips with it, it really is an invaluable tool!

Screenshots

Overview

Application Name:
aCar

Price:
FREE (Donation required for Pro functions)

Official Site:
http://www.zonewalker.com/acar

App information link:
http://www.appbrain.com/app/com.zonewalker.acar

Permissions:
ACCESS_COARSE_LOCATION, INTERNET, READ_PHONE_STATE, RECEIVE_BOOT_COMPLETED, WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE

Rating

The app I’m reviewing today is: Balance Alert for T-Mobile, also known as TMobNotify.

As its name suggests, it won’t be much use to you if you don’t use T-Mobile! However if you’re lucky enough to have a contract with them, then this app is definitely worth a look.

Let’s get to the thorny issue of the price first. It’s 79p. There, that wasn’t so bad was it?

What you get for this paltry sum is an app that will periodically log you into your T-Mobile account and monitor your usage (or Flext balance if you’re so inclined), unbilled costs, and alert if you if you hit the limits you have set in the configuration:

Configuration itself is a doddle, simply enter your “My T-Mobile” login details, choose whether you have a Combi or Flext plan, and set the relevant allowance alerts:

Once enabled, the service checks your account balance at intervals you specify (the default is every 3 hours).

The overview screen now provides all the information at-a-glance:

For those who love their information however, there’s a handy “Get Non-Allowance Breakdown” button which shows you any calls/texts that have been billed outside your normal allowance (for example text short codes like Radio 1′s 81199 etc), and also gives you the total data you’ve used this month, useful if you’re on a cap, or want to avoid hitting a fair-usage policy!

All-in-all, this is a super handy app for anyone on T-Mobile that wants to get a quick look at their account on their phone, without having to go through the rigmarole of logging into T-Mobiles site on your phone, or texting BA or AL to 150 and getting a very concise and rather useless text back!

The only two things I think that would make this app perfect right now would be:

• Some sort of homescreen widget that displayed your balance and minutes/texts remaining.
• Balance of boosters, for example a text or data booster.

Overview

Application Name:
Balance Alert for T-Mobile

Price:
£0.79

Official Site:
http://sites.google.com/site/tmobnotify/

App information link:
http://www.cyrket.com/p/android/cx.ath.tom3030.TMN/

Permissions:
INTERNET, READ_CONTACTS, RECEIVE_BOOT_COMPLETED, WAKE_LOCK

Rating

Seeing as there doesn’t seem to be much relating to this error on Google. Well, there does, but never a resolution (or people are unwilling to share the solution they received from CoPilot).

I had the notorious “Google Checkout number invalid” error, and after re-installing the app, then received this error when trying to log in to my CoPilot account (on the phone): Sorry! Your CoPilot Trial Has Expired – Error 703

So, for the benefit of those of you out there who encounter this problem, here’s the email I received from CoPilot regarding this problem.

Thank you for contacting CoPilot Technical Support. It may be your maps are corrupted. What I would suggest is to

1) Uninstall CoPilot in SETTINGS | APPLICATIONS | COPILOT.
2) Connect your device to your PC over USB
3) Delete the CoPilot folder
4) Now unplug your device from the PC
5) Download CoPilot from the Market Place again (you will not be charged for this)
6) Then follow the Central instructions below to download maps again

Download Central 2.0
1) Please download Central from

http://www.copilotlive.com/central

Getting the device Connected
1) Launch Central 2.0
2) Log in with your CoPilot Live ID (this is required in order to download maps or purchase upgrades)
3) Connect your android device to your PC through a USB cable
4) On the device, drag the top bar down to the bottom of the screen and tap on USB connected
5) Select “Mount”
6) You will see in Central at the top left of the screen your Device model (for android devices we just show “Android Device”) and CoPilot 8 version number.

Downloading Maps
1) Select Download maps – this is an icon in the center of the welcome screen (currently only for android customers) or go to CoPiltot store and select Maps.
2) Select the region to download. You can only download maps for the region you previously selected on your device. These regions will be shown in blue in Central. For all other regions that you have not purchased, the text will appear in black signifying you need to purchase these.
3) Once you click on download, the data will be transferred to your PC, unpacked and sent to the storage card on the device. Please remember to keep the device connected at all times.