Penn Mobile vs DoodleConnect
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!
DoodleConnect
Monitor your child's educational development across multiple learning applications. Stay informed about their achievements, progress through the curriculum, and receive real-time updates on their learning journey.
- Instant progress notifications
- View latest achievements
- Track stars earned
- Follow curriculum progress
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Track your child's progress across all four Doodle apps with DoodleConnect! With the help of DoodleConnect, you can get involved with your child's learning journey like never before. ▶ Key features • Receive instant notifications about their progress • View their latest achievements and see how many stars they've earned • Follow their progress through the curriculum DoodleConnect is free for all Doodle users, whether you have a home or school subscription.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is ratings volume: Penn Mobile at 410 against DoodleConnect's 56. DoodleConnect's advantage is iOS requirement (15.0 vs 17.6). On price, rating, review sentiment and update cadence 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.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.6 for Penn Mobile against 4.7 for DoodleConnect. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Penn Mobile has 410 ratings behind it against 56, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 53% of Penn Mobile's written reviews are positive against 56% of DoodleConnect's.
Penn Mobile ships an update every 4 weeks, DoodleConnect every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on September 8, 2026 and September 21, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Penn Mobile | DoodleConnect |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.6 (410 ratings) | 4.7 (56 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 52.6% of reviews | 56.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 410 — better | 56 |
| Update frequency | Every 4 weeks — better | Every 2 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 17.6 | 15.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 31 MB | 37 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 17+ |
| Developer | University of Pennsylvania | Discovery Education Inc. |
Customer experience
Penn Mobile
DoodleConnect
User reviews
Penn Mobile
From 410 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 👍 Very useful app for students
- 👍 Great interface
- 👍 Helpful for freshman/new students
- 👍 Convenient for dining hall menus
- 👍 Consolidates many student services
Room to improve
- 🐛 Unable to log in
- 🐛 App crashes frequently
- 🐛 API connection issues
- 🐛 Data unavailable
- 🐛 App won't open
DoodleConnect
From 56 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 👍 Great for tracking progress
- 👍 Makes learning fun
- 👍 Interactive and engaging
- 👍 Good for home education
- 👍 Provides insightful data
Room to improve
- 🐛 Glitches and bugs
- 🐛 App crashes/switches off
- 🐛 Syncing issues between devices
- 🐛 Not synching with Doodle Connect
- 🐛 Latest update ruined app
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
Show 4 moreShow fewer
- 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
DoodleConnect
Reported bugs
33 issues- Losing streak
- No synching between apps on different devices
- Not synching with Doodle Connect app
- Latest update ruined the app
- Can't understand children's results anymore
Show 28 moreShow fewer
- Lots of annoying little glitches
- Doesn't work on most devices
- App keeps switching off
- Update is not working
- Can't see message and screen freeze on tapping message icon
- Can't go back to view another sibling's account
- Lack accuracy
- Difficult to collate the information needed
- App won't work
- Doesn't really work
- Can only see one or none of children's progress
- Says child is on 0 day streak when they are not
- Too many glitches in system
- Doesn't record all points when signing in across different devices
- Parent app no longer works
- Last version defective
- Parent dashboard cannot log on
- Misleading info, doesn't relate to child's DM app
- Doodle Stars on DM different to parent area and parent app
- Cannot delete and reinstall because info is stored in the cloud
- Delay between parent app and DoodleMaths app
- Today's or yesterday's stars not showing in metrics
- Missing lots of data
- No longer works since update
- Latest version crap, glitchy
- Have to enter credentials regularly
- Live View never shows anything
- App is full of fundamental design flaws
Requested features
35 requests- Bring back old version
- More comprehensive initial test
- More challenging levels
- Option to add extra material for all students
- Better graphing options
Show 30 moreShow fewer
- See everything that is on the website within the app
- Add more data feed options
- Improve user experience
- Improve design
- Option to create graphs of all students
- Option to select metrics for graphing
- Improve Live View functionality
- Real-time syncing between apps and devices
- Fix streak issues
- Fix synching issues with Doodle Connect
- Allow multiple accounts under one login
- Make app more engaging after all questions are done
- Improve accuracy of reports
- Simplify setup process
- Offer combined order discounts
- Improve customer service responsiveness and helpfulness
- Fix login issues
- Improve accuracy of streaks and progress tracking
- Improve message viewing and replying
- Allow switching between sibling accounts easily
- Make app more user-friendly
- Bring back old app features
- Make app more interactive
- Improve data visualization
- Add dark mode
- Improve reporting accuracy
- Fix app freezing issues
- Improve parent app functionality
- Make app more intuitive
- Improve accuracy of Doodle Age
In-app purchases
Penn Mobile
No in-app purchases
DoodleConnect
No in-app purchases
