My thanks to Alex Solonsky for sponsoring the RSS feed this week to promote his iPhone app, Saver.
Saver is, by far, the most attractive and clever expense-tracking app I have seen on the iPhone. It’s been featured by Apple, has been ranked as the #1 Financial App in iTunes, and has been praised by the likes of MacStories, Minimal Mac, and The iPhone Blog.
With its completely custom UI, Saver looks simply fantastic. It has a similar feel to what you would see from a Tapbots app, but custom designs in Saver are not quite as as heavy handed. And the design and attention to detail are still top-notch. It’s an app full of subtle animations and well-placed pixels, and they all add up to something wonderful. Only an iOS developer would take the time and the care to build a financial app that is so splendid looking.
But it’s not all looks — the functionality of Saver has also been well-designed. Regardless of the task — adding expenses, viewing past transactions, getting a high-level look at your budget, etc. — the app is fast and easy to navigate.
Here are a few things about saver that I find especially clever:
- When looking at the overview of your budget, Saver shows you a colorful pie chart. Tapping on a color of the pie chart drills down to a detailed view of that category’s expenses.
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Saver gets iPhone users: there’s an iTunes category that has sub-categories for music, movies, shows, Apps, and books. Clever.
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You can set which startup screen you prefer. Most financial apps like this insist on believing that when you launch the app it must be so you can see the money you’ve spent. But 9 times out of 10 you’re launching the app so you can quickly add a new expense and be done with it.
Since Saver lets you choose which screen you want to appear when you launch the app, you can tell it to bring up the New Entry pane upon launch. This way you launch it, add a transaction, and be on your way.
- Automatic data backup to their secure servers. In case you don’t plug your iPhone in to your computer often (I sure don’t), Saver has an option to do OTA backups to
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You can set a 4-digit passcode for when you launch the app.
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You can add you own tags to expenses by sliding the tag chart over to the left and then tapping and holding on one of the three dots. Moreover you can add a note for each transaction, and you can even snap a photo or add a photo from your iPhone’s camera library. This is great for snapping a photo of a potentially-important receipt and then tossing the physical copy of it. (Lord knows I don’t like to keep receipts around, but sometimes there are ones which you know you’ll need.)
I see Saver as having a use case for both those with a complex budget, as well as for those with simpler budgeting needs. For the former, you likely already use an online or desktop financial tracking app — in which case Saver makes a great companion for helping keep track of where we spend that cash which is so good at burning a hole in our pockets. And for those with simpler budgeting needs, what better tool to keep track of your monthly spending than with an app that is with you all the time?
This week Alex is doing a giveaway to help promote Saver. Check out the Saver website for details.
If you don’t want to wait on, or take your chances in the giveaway, you can grab Saver for just $3 in the App Store.