It’s been a little over 4 weeks since leaving the iPhone (3GS) and AT&T and movin’ on up to the HTC Incredible on Verizon. We hit an inflection point at week 2 and the HTC Incredible has gone from “sufficient” to “sometimes awesome and mostly Incredible”.
Here’s the overview:
Phone: iPhone4 Antnnna? This phone makes and receives calls with 100% confidence. I haven’t dropped a call yet - honest! And I’m using it in parts of the Bay Area that had previously been dead zones. Bravo.
Speed: Incredible. As fast Faster than my 3GS
Google Integration: I continue to be impressed. Mail, calendars, contacts - the cloud is awesome. Google Voice takes visual voice mail to an entirely new place with transcription that is fairly accurate and eliminates the need for many a wasted call back.
Customization: Incredible. I have icons for frequently accessed tasks such as calling someone (wife, work, sister) texting someone (wife) and so on. I have widgets, weather, and a home screen calendar icon that tells me what my next appointment is.
Incredible.
Is the future of pricing ‘A la carte’?
Are we headed towards a world of paying $0.99 for every thing? Has the application marketplace taken us ‘off the menu’ for good?
Restaurants have done it for decades. Well before the iPhone, the carriers (like AT&T) got us accustomed to this with their billing process. Phone insurance? $2.99 a month. Add data? $9.99. Ringtones? $2.09. And so on and so on until your $79.99 “complete package” gave you a bill with taxes, surcharges and other cleverly named costs and looked more like $150 a month.
Now we’re buying apps in the same way. Apple saw 1,000,000 apps downloaded the first DAY the iPad was released. Personally, I don’t hesitate to try a new app for up to around $1.99. Over $2.00 and something triggers in my mind that makes me more cautious.
With the massive popularity, more phones and, iAd, AdMob and more ads on the way, prices for apps should continue to remain low. Which means we’ll all keep on clicking “BUY” without much thought. Brilliant…if you’re selling.
But what about buyers. Will we be seeing this pricing model play out elsewhere? TV? News? Are we moving to an app-ified world (yes) and will we see more and more payments for smaller amounts (maybe)?
Isn’t A la carte more expensive in a restaurant?
