Skyfire charges one-off fee to watch web videos
Life of Android - April 26, 2011
Launched in 2008, the fantastic Skyfire web browser was the first to offer Flash video playback on smartphones. It used proprietary tech to compress online video up to 75% for smoother loading and playback while making a saving on your data plan. Since then, it has become one of the slickest and most popular mobile web browsers on Android. Before now the whole app video shebang cost nada, but on its latest 4.0 instalment Skyfire has adopted the Freemium pricing model, charging new Android users a £1.81 ($2.99) one time fee to access its superb premium video feature.
To reward loyalty, existing users will get the video functionality for gratis and although the Skyfire 4.0 web browser app is still free to download from the Android Market, Skyfire virgins will, after an initial free 3 day trial period, have to make an in-app purchase of a video license key to continue accessing and watching online clips – it’s optional but surely worth the a small outlay.
Beyond the new Freemium stance, Skyfire 4.0 delivers a customisable toolbar and expanded social network base. On version 3.0 the bottom Skybar was static and featured only a Facebook QuickView; this is now scrollable and customisable with options to add a Twitter QuickView, and new News, Finance and Sports ‘trending’ news feeds. The Share feature, previously found in the Options menu, has also now been attached to the Skybar. To get an idea how these new features look and play out take a peak at the official video below.
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