iPad&iPhone App Reviews

The Carpool Balancer app is a new tool to make sure that the covered miles of each member of a car pool are fairly balanced. We all agree that everybody in a car pool should drive as often as everybody else. But as soon as drivers pick up people at different meeting points or drivers become passengers when somebody else takes over keeping track of all covered miles becomes a tricky task.

But that ends now! Carpool Balancer makes it easy to keep an eye on everbody's miles record. Even when people sometimes miss some tours and later join the car pool again. The app calculates "bonus (positive) miles" for each driver and "malus (negative) miles" for the passengers. The more often you give others a lift the more bonus miles you get. As a passenger you lose miles. In the end, when everybody has driven the same distances with the same number of passengers everbody's miles record gets back to zero - as it has been at the start.

The car pool, its members and the distances between the meeting points, can easily be setup. The app requires that you list all meeting points and measure the distances between them. Whether you do that in miles or kilometers (or any other unit) doesn't matter. The app allows you to easily enter the names for all drivers and the names and lengths for all distances.

The result is shown in a clear and ordered way on the start screen. Here, you enter a tour's data - who has driven and who have been the passengers - in a quite simple way. After a few clicks you are done. That makes the app usable for everyday. The status information cannot be shared with other installations on other devices. So you have to pick one member of your car pool you trust. His or her job is then to enter every tour and tell who's supposed to drive next.

All tours are logged and can be seen on a history page. The current status can be sent in an email to the other members of the car pool. Tweeds are not supported. That might be a useful addition for a future update. A manual is integrated in the app which explains all functions in detail and gives some examples how to use it. Supported languages are English and German. It runs on all iDevices with iOS 4 or higher. The graphics look crisp and clear on a retina display.

On an iPhone (or iPod touch) the number of drivers and distances is limited up to six. On an iPad you can enter ten drivers and nine distances. So, for car pools with many members you need some one with an iPad.

The Carpool Balancer app is a nice and simple tool, suitable for every car pool! And it really gives you the feeling that you only drive your fair share of the way :)