Fuel Milage App? Which One?

[ilp]

When you first add a car, you can choose odometer or trip odometer (and gallons vs. liters). The catch is that you can't change it later. You will probably have to enter a new car and start over, re-inputting the data.

that's just dumb. 21st century and you can't change how you input things after the fact?

i'm using MPG right now (i think it got renamed). it's super basic and the interface looks like something a high school project came up with. but it lets me enter odometer miles (nice not to have to reset the trip meter). no way to enter skips of any kind (what if a friend filled up my tank and I didn't realize?), statistics are lackluster.

why do these apps not remember what octane I fill up with? i always use the same octane, and there's almost never a switch. well, then again, i don't care to track the octane, so it's a moot point for me.

but think about all these things! you can't go and edit prior entries? can't see the last fillup date? can't edit liters or gallons after the fact? (what if i go to canada and i'm filling up with liters for a few days?) can't enter whether my gas mileage is mostly highway or mostly city? (now THAT is so basic! come on!)

Yet the developer spent the time making a fancy "fuel sticker" look-a-like page (the green page with the pump and two numbers)! that effort could've been spent actually making useful statistics and adding truly useful behaviors to the app.

This is really minor, but why do the two apps I've tried so far all insist on having an odometer where you scroll up and down? in the time it takes me to scroll up and down the last 3 digits of the odometer and get them right, I could've entered my entire 5-digit odometer reading using a nice large keyboard, twice!

 

[Ntombi]

that's just dumb. 21st century and you can't change how you input things after the fact?

i'm using MPG right now (i think it got renamed). it's super basic and the interface looks like something a high school project came up with. but it lets me enter odometer miles (nice not to have to reset the trip meter). no way to enter skips of any kind (what if a friend filled up my tank and I didn't realize?), statistics are lackluster.

why do these apps not remember what octane I fill up with? i always use the same octane, and there's almost never a switch. well, then again, i don't care to track the octane, so it's a moot point for me.

but think about all these things! you can't go and edit prior entries? can't see the last fillup date? can't edit liters or gallons after the fact? (what if i go to canada and i'm filling up with liters for a few days?) can't enter whether my gas mileage is mostly highway or mostly city? (now THAT is so basic! come on!)

Yet the developer spent the time making a fancy "fuel sticker" look-a-like page (the green page with the pump and two numbers)! that effort could've been spent actually making useful statistics and adding truly useful behaviors to the app.

This is really minor, but why do the two apps I've tried so far all insist on having an odometer where you scroll up and down? in the time it takes me to scroll up and down the last 3 digits of the odometer and get them right, I could've entered my entire 5-digit odometer reading using a nice large keyboard, twice!

With AccuFuel, the only two things that are unchangeable are odometer/trip odometer and miles/kilometers (not liter/gallon I made a mistake). Everything else is fully adjustable. You CAN edit prior entries. That was the question I had earlier in this thread.

As for the odometer setting, the good thing about AccuFuel is that it keeps the odometer at the last setting, so you only have to scroll the last few values.

I lost my data when I updated this morning (not AccuFuel's fault, I got a call in the middle, and it made my sync go wonky), and had to re-enter from December 07 to now, and it took me less than ten minutes. Really simple, but good.

I am still hoping for some updates and more graphs, but this is cool for now. Also, in the update, it gives the option to e-mail the raw data (in CSV format).

If you're in Canada, use a converter tool to switch liters to gallons.

 

[ilp]

As for the odometer setting, the good thing about AccuFuel is that it keeps the odometer at the last setting, so you only have to scroll the last few values.

I find scrolling the last 3 values is as long as entering the entire value on a keypad. That whole scrolling thing is way too gimmicky, in my opinion.

 

[johata3]

I am pretty convinced through this thread that I will either get AccFuel or CarCare. However, there's a price difference and both apps look good. I still can't decide which one to get...

 

[MBHockey]

I got Car Care and I'm very happy with it.

 

[funkboy77]

I am the author of Car Care. It's great to hear those of you who have enjoyed the app!
I will take into account some of comments in this thread and try to apply it to future upgrades of the app. If you have other ideas or desires, please let me know.

 

[Mac In School]

GasHog, which I've used for a while now, has been behaving very strangely lately.

I enter the odometer reading, then the gallons used, then I fill in the next field (total price, I think), and the odometer and gallons fields are often re-set to the values of the previous tank.

Very frustrating.

 

[CTYankee]

I have Fuel Gauge and don't recommend it. A bit flakey at times and the UI is not as good as the others. Looking at Accufuel, but really holding out for one that will support partial fillups.

 

[funkboy77]

I have Fuel Gauge and don't recommend it. A bit flakey at times and the UI is not as good as the others. Looking at Accufuel, but really holding out for one that will support partial fillups.

Just a note that Car Care supports partial fillups. Hope you can find the right app for you.

 

[icewing]

New contender for the title

I used an app called MPG on my Newton and Palm, it worked great.

Note that this is NOT the MPG app that is currently on the App Store; I believe that one is going to be renamed.

I'm currently beta testing MPG on my iPhone, and Hardy has released 2 updates in the last 2 weeks. He always went the extra mile (pun intended) to support his apps and add useful features. Besides just the miles per gallon calculations, I heavily used his reminder function to let me know when I needed to change the oil, rotate tires, transmission flush, etc. It was a great app and I have high hopes for the future. It looks great so far.

His web site is here: http://www.catamount.com/ No, I'm not affiliated with him in any way...but he makes great apps! I also used his PocketMoney app on my Newton and it was great, too.

 

[aluren]

any chance you can give a limited run discount of $0.99 for Car Care??

 

[funkboy77]

any chance you can give a limited run discount of $0.99 for Car Care??

If you can guarantee I can crack the Top 100 of all apps by dropping the price to $0.99, then I'd consider it
Otherwise the price is fairly firm... also, Car Care does have reminders, and custom reminders are coming in the 1.20 update.

 

[Randman]

OK, I decided to put $10 of gas in to get till payday but now Accufuel shows 90mpg. Is there a way to edit this out? Otherwise, it's useless and if I delete the last gas purchase, it again skews the numbers. Disappointing that it has to be filled to emptied to filled to work properly.

 

[Indydenny]

Fuelly

I have been waiting for MPG as well but someone put me on to Fuelly -- http://www.fuelly.com -- and I like it very much. It has a mobile version to use with the iPhone at the pump. Compares your mileage to others -- even others with the same type of car. Pretty impressive.

I still may buy an iphone app but this is doable!

 

[InvalidUserID]

Just found this old thread but thought I'd comment on it.

I've been using GasHog for a month or two now and it has worked very well. The last update now allows for fractional values such as 9.129 gallons rather than just 9.1.

Not bad for $1.99! I don't know exactly how many cars you can enter but I currently have four cars (two are mine, one for sis and one for roommate).

 

[XianPalin]

I've been using Accufuel for a few months, no complaints here. Though they put out an update or two, I was hoping there might be more updates with some random fun features, maybe something to see the price history of gas without having to export.

 

[Randman]

I emailed Accufuel peeps about a concern. How the numbers are skewed when you don't do a full fill-up. They said that fix and a number of other things are being tested and should be out soon.