The iPhone App that doubles your data allowance for free – Money tip #171

 If you have an iPhone, on a pay monthly contract or a pay-as-you-go tariff, 3G data download is expensive. If you are a pay-as-you-go customer then every bit of data costs, while pay monthly users have a capped data limit included in their terms and conditions. Go over this limit and it will cost you if you want to download any more 3G data.

But there is an app, called Onavo, that can save you £s by compressing any data you use. Even better still it is free!

So what does Onavo do?

Once downloaded Onavo sits in the background whilst you carry on using your iPhone in the normal way - unlike similar apps which actually alter your user experience (i.e by limiting your web browsing to text only). Onavo will compress all your data usage therefore allowing pay monthly customers to get more from their data allowance while slashing the cost of data for pay-as-you-go customers.

If you travel abroad then Onavo still operates and can help you to avoid any large data download fees.

Onavo supports only download data at present and therefore doesn't include YouTube or Skype usage but they are working on this.

So how much will Onavo save me?

The claims are that Onavo can double or even triple your data roaming plan. Also, the app will keep track of how much data it's saved you, as well as highlighting the data guzzling apps on your iPhone so you can close these them down or delete them.

Oh, and the app is now available for android users to download as well.