Reviews

Fuel Smart iPhone App Review – Ensuring You Don’t Pay More For Your Fuel

This is a very timely app, with everyone still tightening their belts under the governments latest cut backs and price hikes one thing you don’t want to do is pay more for your car fuel than you have to. Fuel Smart works, it will help you locate, quickly, the cheapest petrol station in your vicinity for your vehicles requirements.

Never have I recommended an app so highly, read this review now and start saving some serious money…

Where Does It Work?

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There are actually four versions of Fuel Smart depending on your worldwide location. A UK one, US, The Republic of Ireland and Portuguese. We are pretty sure that more locations for these apps will be rolled out in the near future. I took a look at the UK one, apart from that’s where I am based, anyone that lives over here knows how expensive motor fuel is and with the recent hike in VAT to 20% its just got even worse.

Introduction

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Firstly, another key point is that this app is remarkable value for money in itself, especially when you consider how much it can save you. It’s 59p in the UK and 99 cents in the US, so we’re off to a brilliant start.

The way Fuel Smart works is that by using the current GPS location, or town, city or post/zip code it searches for petrol stations. The UK app version for example monitors over 9000 petrol stations. It searches for a range of fuel types,, including unleaded, diesel, super unleaded, super diesel, LRP and LPG. From the users current location it is possible to search for stations with 2, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30 miles radius of the iPhone. Once you have located a petrol station you want to visit, the app also provides directions to the station from your current location.

 

Getting Started

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Once you have downloaded the app, I think it’s a good idea to head to the Settings section, third icon from the left of the home screen. From here you can specify your fuel type, tank size and search vicinity.

From the above screen you can see I have added my tank size, 75 litres, I run a Chrysler Grand Voyager and it’s got a huge tank. Then I selected the fuel type, in my case again, I have selected Diesel. I have also selected the Radius for the search vicinity of petrol stations from my current location. Once you have completed this menu, press Save and all your options will be saved for future searches.

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Once you have input your default settings, Fuel Smart will get to work looking for your petrol stations in your vicinity. Take a look at the screen grab above. The green icon shows that the BP garage is selling diesel at £1.33 per litre and the Esso garage is selling the same product for £1.20 – this means to fill my car up it will cost me nearly £10 more if I go to the BP garage – both petrol stations are within half a mile of each other.

Except though, the Esso tab is white and the BP tab is green. Now this is significant as when prices are displayed in white, it means they can be over 3 weeks old, the green colour means the price has been updated in the last 7 days, there is also an amber colour that signifies that the price was updated between 1-3 weeks ago. The US version of Fuel Smart actually shows prices no later than 48 hours old, hopefully this feature can be rolled out to the current and future versions.

So although initially you may feel like racing off to the Esso garage, the price may not be accurate, this is an important point to keep in mind.

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When testing this app out in an area with more petrol stations it really comes into its own though. As can be seen above, in central London a range of petrol stations were located in a small area and did show significant price differences. Even subtle differences in price from £1.29 to £1.32 as above is worth £2.25 for a tank full of diesel in my case.

The above steps really sums this app up. It is very simple to use, very effective and WILL save you money. What more could you ask for? This is a ‘must have’ app for your iPhone. Download it today.

Fuel Smart – UK Version
Fuel Smart – US Version
Fuel Smart – The Republic of Ireland
Fuel Smart – Portugal

Additional Screen Grabs

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Joanne Carter, creator of the world’s most popular mobile photography and art website— TheAppWhisperer.com— TheAppWhisperer platform has been a pivotal cyberspace for mobile artists of all abilities to learn about, to explore, to celebrate and to share mobile artworks. Joanne’s compassion, inclusivity, and humility are hallmarks in all that she does, and is particularly evident in the platform she has built. In her words, “We all have the potential to remove ourselves from the centre of any circle and to expand a sphere of compassion outward; to include everyone interested in mobile art, ensuring every artist is within reach”, she has said. Promotion of mobile artists and the art form as a primary medium in today’s art world, has become her life’s focus. She has presented lectures bolstering mobile artists and their art from as far away as the Museum of Art in Seoul, South Korea to closer to her home in the UK at Focus on Imaging. Her experience as a jurist for mobile art competitions includes: Portugal, Canada, US, S Korea, UK and Italy. And her travels pioneering the breadth of mobile art includes key events in: Frankfurt, Naples, Amalfi Coast, Paris, Brazil, London. Pioneering the world’s first mobile art online gallery - TheAppWhispererPrintSales.com has extended her reach even further, shipping from London, UK to clients in the US, Europe and The Far East to a global group of collectors looking for exclusive art to hang in their homes and offices. The online gallery specialises in prints for discerning collectors of unique, previously unseen signed limited edition art. Her journey towards becoming The App Whisperer, includes (but is not limited to) working for a paparazzi photo agency for several years and as a deputy editor for a photo print magazine. Her own freelance photographic journalistic work is also widely acclaimed. She has been published extensively both within the UK and the US in national and international titles. These include The Times, The Sunday Times, The Guardian, Popular Photography & Imaging, dpreview, NikonPro, Which? and more recently with the BBC as a Contributor, Columnist at Vogue Italia and Contributing Editor at LensCulture. Her professional photography has also been widely exhibited throughout Europe, including Italy, Portugal and the UK. She is currently writing several books, all related to mobile art and is always open to requests for new commissions for either writing or photography projects or a combination of both. Please contact her at: [email protected]

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