The iPhone devices from Apple have unarguably played a most significant role in making the smartphone industry what it is today and in introducing the layman to the world of user-friendly and comprehensible on-the-go computing. After the invention of smartphone, the industry grew up continuously with the introduction of lots of advanced new buzz. High-speed data protocols in the form of 3G and 4G LTE are one of those advanced buzz. But…but…but the mobile data doesn’t come cheap; the excessive data costs often annoy the smartphone holders. Actually, iOS allows the users to monitor their mobile data usage, but with two stipulations. The first one is that the users need to dig deep within settings to have a look at the data usage stats for their device and the second one is that there is no easy way to keep an eye on Wi-Fi usage. The App Store boasts some fairly skilled apps for that, but again the users have to rely on an app to look into the data usage stats. Fortunately, the jailbreak users can now track the network traffic data usage on their iPhone by means of NetMeter Widget.
NetMeter Widget is a Cydia tweak developed by iOS developer Fairylabs, which provides the data usage information in iOS Notification Center. This widget enables the users to look into their iPhone’s data usage stats from the notification center alongside some other handy statistics. NetMeter Widget is capable to show the statistics including data usage, network speed, Wi-Fi usage and personal-hotspot usage in the notification center. Moreover, if you have limited data plan, it can help you to monitor your data by displaying that how much data left to be used. If you have unlimited data plan, it will display that you have unlimited data left to use.
There is requirement of installing Netmeter Widget on your iOS device if you want to get the data usage stats in iOS Notification Center. It is available for free of cost in the BigBoss repository. This tweak is compatible with iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPad, iPad 2, new iPad, iPod touch 3G and iPod touch 4G. It can be installed only on jailbroken iOS devices. So, to install the NetMeter, there is a requirement of jailbreaking your iPhone, iPod touch and iPad device. Once you jailbreak your iOS device, install Cydia on your device. Now, search for ‘NetMeter’ and hit the ‘Download’ button to install the tweak on your device.
It is not a standalone notification center widget because it automatically comes alongside the NetMeter application if you don’t boast it already. The NetMeter icon also gets appear in iPhone’s springboard. The whole configuration of the widget is performed with this app and the users can watch the stats locally within the app. The NetMeter app displays 3G/GPRS usage stats and Wi-Fi data usage stats on the daily, weekly, monthly basis. The Settings under Layout Arrangement enables the users to get more information such as Personal Hotspot usage, total usage for the Day, Week and Month, etc. The users are also facilitated to set the usage limits for GPRS and Wi-Fi by depicting the first day of billing cycle.
Now, let’s have a closer look at the NetMeter Widget because the real utility of this Cydia tweak comes from its widget. Firstly, the users are necessitated to access the widget manually, as with most notification center items. This can be done by hitting the Settings app, taping the Notifications and dragging the NetMeter item to the above panel for activation. The widget doesn’t boast its separate settings section; it represents the things which you have set in the NetMeter app. It displays the current network speeds for 3G/GPRS and Wi-Fi, alongside total data usage and any limits that you may have set. But, the widget cannot be modified because you cannot set it to display the usage for the Day, Week, etc, rather than the total stats.
On the whole, being a free tweak, the NetMeter is a worth shot for anybody who wants to keep eye on how much wireless bandwidth is being consumed by their iDevices.
