LIVESTRONG.COM Calorie Tracker
This application was found by doing a search for the word “diet” in the App Store with my iPhone, it’s “FREE” and developed by LIVESTRONG.COM.
The business model is paid upsell of features which is discovered immediately after opening the application. The screen reads as follows:
“Experience the full benefits of the LIVESTRONG.COM Calorie Tracker. Upgrade now and you can:
Track anywhere — on your iPhone, iPad, or website with automatic sync
Participate in the LIVESTRONG.COM community to give and get support.
Absolutely No Ads!
Would you like to upgrade now?
Don’t worry, you can always do this later.”
The application has tracking for the items entered via a web server. For example, on airplane mode where the iPhone is “offline”, the user won’t be able to find any matches other than previously tracked items when trying to add an item to their daily calorie count.
The “LITE” version has banner ads rotating through at the bottom of the screen. When you click on one of the ads you get sent to the App Store and the cycle starts over…Discovery, Download, Activation, Usage, and Conversion.
For the interested reader, the site http://mobithinking.com/native-or-web-app has a great overview of native vs. web apps.
