Interesting: App Store Expense Monitor

December 23rd, 2009

Here’s a fun Mac app that will bring some year-end good news (or bad, depending on how you look at things): App Store Expense Monitor. It analyzes all the iPhone apps you’ve downloaded, lists their price, and adds up the total.

According to the app, I’ve spent $360 bucks on iPhone apps. That’s actually lower than I feared, but on the other hand I could have bought thirty dog Snuggies.

The Good

• Lists apps in columns of name, category, and price, all of which are sortable if you click in the top column, so you can see the most expensive apps.
• Option to have the sum total appear in your menu bar — presumably as a painful reminder of your spending habits.

The Bad

• Prices are calculated when you launch the app based on what’s in the app store right now, so the price you originally paid may not appear, if the app has dropped in price. I know this is the case for Scrabble (now selling for $4.99, while I’m pretty sure I paid about ten bucks) and iDracula (now on sale for 99 cents). You can double-click on any displayed price and updated it with your own, however.

Conclusion

App Store Expense Monitor does what it claims, plus: it’s free. And I now have some ability to budget for my iPhone app addiction next year — which is, priceless.