POSTED BY

Joel Johnson

AT 7:40 AM
Thursday December 18, 2008

Phones and Wireless

alltel • phones • renting software • trimble outdoors • wireless

Do you rent software on your mobile?

trimbleoutdoors.jpgWhile Trimble Outdoors looks like a neat little piece of software for GPS-enabled mobile phones, enabling not just mapping but breadcrumb trail marking and geotagged photos and video, the pricing structure just announced on Alltel is peculiar: $1.99 a day, $5.99 a month, or $40 per year.

Do people regularly rent mobile software by the day? I had no idea.

10 Comments

Deleet

#1 – 7:53 AM December 18, 2008

It used to be this way for some games on my old sprint phone thankfully tetris was a 1 time purchase...

TJ S

#2 – 8:00 AM December 18, 2008

The Garmin software on Helio is $2.99/day I think. Absolutely not worth it, when you've got Google maps there for free.

stumo

#3 – 8:11 AM December 18, 2008

Seems quite a good way of doing a 'try before you buy' - or equally for stuff you know you'll only use briefly (e.g. getting mapping software for a specific trip to another country).

zuzu

#4 – 8:16 AM December 18, 2008

DocumentsToGo costs $70 for the current version forever, for $50/year for what I presume includes possible major upgrades.

Renting software has a huge psychological barrier to me. I'd feel better about it if I knew I was paying for an "upgrade protection plan" than for continued use of the existing version. Maybe I'm suffering from a case of loss aversion.

crankypage

#5 – 9:13 AM December 18, 2008

Spanning Sync, a ical/gcal/WM6 sync tool, is available for rent ($25/year) or purchase ($65). Either way, too rich for my blood (and to read the online reviews, I'm not the only one who feels that way.)

Clif Marsiglio

#6 – 9:15 AM December 18, 2008

On my old cell phone, I bought a few games only to have them 'expire' after two months...I only played them once or twice on an airplane. Go to play a few months later trapped on a plane...and no go.

Worse, it really never mentioned this anywhere near the purchase...I'm certain it was in the fine print, but nothing that reached out and bit ya.

I really don't like the idea of expiring software...

Enochrewt

#7 – 12:19 PM December 18, 2008

Verizon does something similar, they had Oregon Trail (YES!) for $3.49/mo or $6.99 to purchase. I have misgivings about both options, since on one hand I might want to play Oregon Trail (WOO!) on a plane 6 months down the road and have already canceled the "rental" after a month. On the other hand buying the game doesn't seem to actually be buying it, due to it being locked to my current handset (I think), so when I upgrade phones it's gone anyway.

Much to Verizon's chagrin, I won't buy any games/software because of this quandary. Way to go, you soul sucking, money grubbing asshats.

Scuba SM

#8 – 12:27 PM December 18, 2008

Verizon also has a similar plan for their VZNavigator, which is another GPS program. I forget the precise price, but it was around $10 per day, with much higher costs for monthly and yearly subscriptions. I think you also had to pay for the data to the phone if you didn't have a data plan to update maps, etc. I decided the paper maps in my glove box were sufficient.

zuzu

#9 – 12:51 PM December 18, 2008

Verizon also has a similar plan for their VZNavigator, which is another GPS program. I forget the precise price, but it was around $10 per day, with much higher costs for monthly and yearly subscriptions.
I'm suddenly reminded of how Verizon loves to disable Bluetooth features on their phones so that you have to pay them as a toll keeper for equivalent service.
I decided the paper maps in my glove box were sufficient.
I think BlackBerry Maps (with turn-by-turn directions) with the $20/mo T-Mobile complete data plan is the best thing ever on a phone.

Ronald Pottol

#10 – 9:58 AM December 19, 2008

I wish T-Mobile did that with sidekick apps, say a buck a day until you reach the purchase price. I'd have spent far more money if I was only spending a buck or two to try an app, rather than $7 and finding out I don't like it.

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