Cell Minute Tracker Keeps an Eye on Talk and Text Bills

Cell Minute Tracker, from Pageonce, let's you monitor your AT&T talk and texting message plans so you can make sure you and your family are sticking to plan.

When you first launch Cell Minute Tracker, you’re asked to enter your AT&T Wireless number and password into the designated fields. If you decide to use a passcode to prevent others from using Cell Minute Tracker, there’s a field for that too. The first time, it will take about 2 minutes to log into your online AT&T account and set up. It will be faster after that.

The first thing you’ll see in Cell Minute Tracker is an overview of the minutes you’ve used for the month (Anytime, Rollover and others). You’ll also see how many days are left in the cycle, so you’ll know where you stand for the month.

If you have a family plan, you can see usage for each telephone number. Use a scroll wheel menu to choose a number, followed by Done and you get minutes and data views for the account.

If you have ‘tweens or teens on your account, you’ll want to keep a sharp eye on usage. When I got my teenage daughter her first cell phone, she made 660 calls in the first month. The bill was more than $650, but I was able to plead my case with AT&T, which put us on a more suitable plan.

Next, you can check your bill by amount due, bill summary, current charges and so on. Cell Minute Tracker is straightforward and the info is easy to find.  If your AT&T Wireless online account is set up for it, you can tap the Make a Payment button and you’ll head off via the Web to your account.

There’s not much under the Settings icon on the right side of the bottom menu bar in Cell Minute Tracker. The main things you can do is create a passcode lock for your app and edit your AT&T Wireless Login Info.

There’s also an explanation of Pageonce’s privacy policy, and stuff like that is always crucial to know when you’re using apps like this one to access sensitive accounts. Pageonce doesn’t require personally verifiable info that connects you to your accounts, unlike many App Store developers do these days.

I predict App Store shoppers will start to rebel against apps that require registration for no real purpose and require login info without a solid assurance about privacy and security. Pageone does a good job in this respect.

Cell Minute Tracker certainly pays off if you want to keep your cell phone usage within range, without going over plan. It’s also handy being able to access that data without going to AT&T’s own Web site (ironically, I find that it’s site is usually slow).