App Review: App Info+ Gives You All The Information On All Your Apps

I’ve had quite a streak of amazing Apps to review lately from my friends over at Nokia Dvlup. The talented developers there continue to astound me daily as I keep going through the lists of Apps that are messaged to me or sent to me via email. Today, I had the pleasure of taking App Info+ from Ocean68 Studio for a test drive. If the name of the developer sounds familiar, it’s because they are on the ones that brought us 11,000 Cool Facts. That App garnered a great review from me previously. That said, App Info+ does exactly what it says it does, it tells you information about the App before you grab it.

App Info+ starts off with an easy enough screen. The App simply has a search bar at the top of the screen and a deals icon at the bottom. The search bar at the top is also accompanied by a region selector as well. There is also the ad support space just above the deals button. To use App Info+, you simply enter the name of the App you want information on and watch the list populate below your entry.

When you select the App you want from the list, a window pops up offering you information on the App itself. In the info box, you will see the number of ratings and the average rating. You will see the price of the App, when it was released and the date it was last updated. It shows the download size and the install size. It also offers an estimate on the amount of internal storage needed for the App to operate.

I have to say that I was thoroughly impressed with the data that App Info+ offered in such a quick fashion, especially with my limited 16GB device. Unfortunately, the data that App Info+ offered me and the actual install size of the App I checked was very different. According to Nokia Storage Check, App Info+ is using 19MB of data where as the App Info+ total shows the installed size as near 8.28MB. I would love to see this cleaned up in a later release, but for now, I’ll accept it as a bit of a bug. (See the update on 5/8/14 on why this line was removed.)

The last awesome feature of App Info+ is the linking to the App AppDeals, which offers daily free and discounted Apps. This little gem is a great addition to any Windows Phone all on its own. Ocean68 Studio was brilliant to loop this freebie into App Info+ and for that reason alone this is a 4 star App. Adding the additional information that App Info+ provides easily makes this App worth the 19MB’s of space on your device. If you are a frequent App installer, check out App Info+ and gain one touch access to all those Apps you want to install.

UPDATE 5/8/14

I was contacted by Ocean68 Studio about the method that I used about determining the App Size information used in this post. I currently use a Nokia Lumia 925 for my daily testing phone and at the time that this post was written, Nokia Storage Check showed the App was using 19MB of space on my device. Post the 8.1 Developer Preview, it shows 18.04MB in the new Storage Sense feature. This varies from the ~8.28MB amount that the App stated that it used.

Ocean68 Studio did point me to the fact that their App matches the Windows Phone Store data exactly, which I will give them credit for. While my storage check Apps may not be 100% accurate compared to the Store amounts, App Info+ is correctly showing the data required by the Store to install the App and that is what that feature is designed to show. For now, I will continue to use Storage Sense or Storage Check for review purposes, but it's nice to see that they have an explanation for the difference and how they made it all work. Great job guys!