Heads up for anyone considering Skyscape for iPhone/iPod Touch

I've seen a number of threads asking about Skyscape vs. Unbound, LexiPro, etc. IMHO Skyscape is an excellent product, but most people seem to be unaware of their subscription policy, which is different than Unbound's.

When I got my Touch last year, I was planning to install Skyscape's Constellation Plus on it, but when doing research I found out that Skyscape did not offer a standard purchase option for Apple products (as they did for Blackberry, etc.) Instead they offered a subscription which was slightly cheaper (yay!) BUT that, when it expired in a year, totally locked down the texts and you no longer had access to them. You had to renew (meaning pay full price again) to regain access to the texts. (Boo!) I went with Unbound because of this.

After posting in a few iPod threads in this forum and not seeing anyone else mentioning this (Skyscape doesn't make it obvious, you really had to go looking for it), I went back to the Skyscape site to see if things had changed. They had, to a degree. They now offer both the "subscription" and the "standard" options, but you still have to do a little research to find out what exactly you're getting.

The "subscription" option is cheaper, but it's NOT a good deal. This is the one that they offered for iPhone/Touch, where you lost all access to your texts when the subscription ended. Skyscape pushes this option as the "Best Value!", which is honestly not true, and they offer "convenient auto-renewal", which is just a way of saying, "We'll automatically charge you $150 every year". From the Skyscape website:

Then there's the Standard version, which is new for Apple products. This is the option that they offer for other PDAs, and that Unbound has always had. This is where you lose access to updates and online content after a year, but you still keep the texts. It's more expensive, but a much better buy in the long run.

This is just a head's up for all those who are considering Skyscape products for their iPhone or Touch. I know a number of people who were unaware of this and basically didn't realize what they were (or weren't) getting when they purchased from Skyscape.