Boxcar Gets iPad Support, All Services Are Now Free
June 4, 2010
Boxcar has gone through a lot of changes since it was first introduced. It initially provided users with a way to get the newly launched and highly sought after push notifications for Twitter mentions and direct messages. At that time you could obtain its services for a one-time fee. Then the company introduced loads of new services to receive push notifications for, resulting in the app going free and having users pay per additional service. Now with the introduction of iPad support comes yet another business model that's sure to make many current and new users start receiving even more push notifications.
Boxcar v3.0 is now available as a free app with free services. You are no longer required to pay a separate $.99 - $1.99 fee to get push notifications for additional services, so now you can get push notifications for Twitter, Facebook, RSS, Email, Atom, and Growl without spending a single penny. The only difference is that the app now contains ads in its inbox. Those ads can be removed for the in-app purchase price of $4.99.
But what about those of you who paid for the app or additional services? How could this possibly be a good thing? Well, according to the developers, if you have paid for anything in Boxcar, even the app itself, you will never see an ad in your inbox. So basically, that $4.99 fee is waved.
Boxcar v3.0 also features full iPad support as we mentioned earlier, a revamped inbox, the ability to delete notifications in your inbox, and five new sounds to choose from.
How do you folks feel about this change? A lot of developers seem to be steering towards the free ad-supported app with the ability to remove them via in-app purchase. Is this something you are interested in or have you had enough of in-app purchases?
[Thanks to @mattbanks for the tip!]