Google’s new Android app stops other apps from wasting your data
Google is launching another stylish and simple Android app designed to help people manage one of the core functions of their
phone — in this case, data usage.
The app is called Datally,
and it’s supposed to help you understand where you data is going and
cut down on how much you’re using. Datally will show which apps are
using data the most and at what times your data is getting used up;
it’ll also recommend ways to cut down data usage based on your own
activity and suggest nearby Wi-Fi networks for you to connect to.
More importantly, there’s a big button at the top of the
app that lets you stop all background data usage, so only the app that’s
actively onscreen can use mobile data. A chat-head style bubble will
also pop up to let you know how much data your currently running app is
using up. And if you don’t want to block every single app from using
background data, Datally will let you go in and control data usage on an
app by app basis, too.
If you’re a longtime Android user, Datally might not
sound all that exciting. Nearly all of the app’s functions are already
built into Android directly. But those features are hidden inside the
settings menu, and they aren’t spelled out quite as neatly as they
appear to be inside Datally. As a standalone app, it’ll also be much
easier for people to find and remember to use.
Datally is being released as part of Google’s Next Billion Users initiative,
which is focused on making Google products more usable in countries
that have limited mobile connections and where lower-end hardware
remains widespread. That’s why the initiative is focusing on basic
features like storage management — as with its last standalone app — and data usage. It’s also why Datally takes up a tiny 6MB of space.
Josh Woodward, the product manager overseeing Datally,
says the idea for the app came from seeing the lengths that people go to
preserve data, particularly in countries where mobile plans remain
relatively expensive. In Delhi, Lagos, and Buenos Aires, Woodard said
his team saw people who would keep their phone on airplane mode at all
times to prevent data usage. When they wanted to check their
notifications, they’d turn airplane mode off, let all the info rush in,
and then turn airplane mode back on while they looked over the new
information.
“A bunch of us on the team spent a lot of time on long
flights observing people in their homes, bus stations, classrooms, and
kept seeing this airplane mode behavior,” Woodward told The Verge.
Google has been testing Datally in the Philippines since
this summer. The company says it’s already hit over 500,000 users and
that it’s been able to save people, on average, 30 percent of their
data. As of today, the app is being released to the rest of the world
and is available to any phone running Android 5.0 or higher.
Obviously, if you can afford to use the extra data, you
probably won’t want to use this app. Cutting off background data use
will hurt your overall phone experience, as not only will apps not
refresh content in the background, but apps won’t send you push
notifications either (which means you wouldn’t be able to chat with
someone over anything but SMS). But if you’re constantly bumping up
against your data cap, Datally seems like an easy way to start figuring
out where the problem is.
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