Penn Mobile vs InitialView
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Penn Mobile
Streamline your campus experience with essential tools for student life. Access study room bookings, dining hall menus and hours, course schedules, and laundry machine availability. Quickly find fitness facility hours and emergency services.
- Study room booking
- Dining hall hours and menus
- Course schedule access
- Laundry machine availability
- Fitness facility hours
- Emergency services access
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Study room booking, dining hall hours, course schedule, daily menus, laundry machine accessibility, fitness facility hours, and quick access to emergency services! Penn Mobile was designed by students in Penn Labs with the intention of making your school life simpler. What does this mean? No more carrying your laundry four floors up trying to find a laundry machine. No more hunting for dining hall hours on the web. And no more struggles trying to book a study room. You can now do it all at the press of a button. Enjoy!
InitialView
This platform provides live, unscripted interviews for academic program admissions. It helps assess applicants' English ability and interpersonal skills for boarding schools, undergraduate, and graduate programs worldwide. The service offers admission officers assurance through its proprietary interview technology.
- Live, unscripted interviews
- English ability assessment
- Interpersonal skills evaluation
- Proprietary interview platform
- Global admissions support
- Admission officer assurance
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For InitialView Students and Schools' Admission Officers' Use. InitialView was founded in Beijing, China in 2009, and in a short time it has become a world leader in interview services, having provided interviews to thousands of applicants to top academic programs. We provide live, unscripted interviews which are then uploaded to our proprietary interview platform. Our proprietary platform allows viewers to, within seconds, determine the interviewee’s English ability and interpersonal skills. Our technology is currently patent-pending in both the U.S. and China. Our interviews have been a part of more than 40,000 applications reviewed by over 200 boarding school, undergraduate, and graduate programs. We have interviewed applicants in over 50 countries. We are able to provide admission officers a level of assurance about our interviews, processes and operations in China in a way that is unmatched by others in international education.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is review sentiment: InitialView at 100% against Penn Mobile's 53%. InitialView also leads on iOS requirement (13.0 vs 17.6). Penn Mobile's advantage is rating (4.6 vs 3.2) and ratings volume (410 vs 11). On price, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Penn Mobile holds the better App Store score, 4.6 against 3.2. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Penn Mobile has 410 ratings behind it against 11, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 53% of Penn Mobile's written reviews are positive against 100% of InitialView's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.
Penn Mobile ships an update every 4 weeks, InitialView monthly. The most recent releases landed on September 8, 2026 and September 7, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Penn Mobile | InitialView |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.6 (410 ratings) — better | 3.2 (11 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 52.6% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 410 — better | 11 |
| Update frequency | Every 4 weeks — better | Monthly |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free — better | Ad-supported |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 17.6 | 13.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 31 MB | 10 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | University of Pennsylvania | Terry Crawford |
Customer experience
Penn Mobile
InitialView
Bugs and requests
Penn Mobile
Reported bugs
9 issues- Unable to log in after Duo pop-up
- Cannot load dining halls or retail dining
- Unable to log in with PennKey
- App does not open after recent update
- App prompts to log in every time
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- App does not save login after exiting
- Pop-up message: "Couldn't connect to API"
- App crashes frequently
- Dining hall information is incorrect or not shown
Requested features
6 requests- Include fitness center hours
- Include building directory of campus
- Fix API connection issues
- Update app for better stability
- Fix login bugs
Show 1 moreShow fewer
- Improve login persistence
InitialView
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Penn Mobile
No in-app purchases
InitialView
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Penn Mobile free?
Is InitialView free?
Which has better reviews, Penn Mobile or InitialView?
Do Penn Mobile or InitialView have ads?
Which is updated more often, Penn Mobile or InitialView?
Other comparisons
