For current subscribers to Questia's online collection, this .99 iPhone/iPod application provides 24/7 access to what Questia bills as "the world's largest online collection of books and journal articles in the humanities and social sciences, plus magazine and newspaper articles". Complimenting their online library, Questia "offers a range of search, note-taking, and writing tools designed to help students locate the most relevant information on their topics quickly, quote and cite correctly, and create properly formatted footnotes and bibliographies automatically".
Questia's effectiveness as a research source aside, I can't for the life of me understand why they feel the need to charge another 99 cents for an application that requires a paid subscription to their basic services at $99/year.
Please note that the reason Questia charges .99 cents for the application is because at the time we developed this app, Apple's policy required that free applications could not include an in-app purchase. The only way for us to provide the in-app purchase model necessary for compensating publishers for their copyrighted books was to charge something for the download. We understand that Apple will be rolling out a subscription model soon. At such time, it is likely we will make the download free and then offer a a subscription for access to copyrighted books, if that pricing strategy is in line with Apple guidelines.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Sean. That clears things up completely.
ReplyDelete