Free Toolbox Brings Templates To Apple’s Pages App (except for the ‘free’ part)

There’s a new way to shop online these days and it bothers me. It’s not bait and switch. That’s a time honored way to separate us from our money when we least expect it.

Here in the 21st century we need new ways to coax us to release our hard earned dough. Instead of buying an app in a store. Get a free app, and then buy stuff. Sound crazy? That’s the way it is.

When Free Isn’t Free

The newest way to buy apps for Mac and iPhone grinds my gears, catches my hair on fire, and puts an extra day into my PMS calendar.

Take Toolbox for Pages on your Mac. Please. It’s free. What do you get with it. Nothing? Almost, but not quite nothing.

Imagine a taxi which will take you where you want to go for free. But it costs money to get out of the taxi once you reach your destination.

Toolbox for Pages is an app– and it’s free– which lets you buy templates and illustrations for Apple Pages.

It takes advantage of Apple’s new love for in-app purchases. It’s one thing to download an app and then add features for 99-cents.

But it’s something else again to download a free app that does nothing until you spend money on an in-app purchase.

The app becomes a store.

To be fair, Toolbox for Pages couldn’t be easier to use. It’s not so much a toolbox as it is a store within an app.

The left sidebar lists the available template packages.

Four tab buttons in the main section display New Items, All Items, Featured and Favorites.

Toolbox for Pages features a healthy list of templates which are available for in-app purchase.

The sets include Inspiration, Business, Stationery, Corporate Style, Elements, and Jumsoft’s Clipart package.

Or, you can purchase individual elements. Overall, Toolbox has more than 700 templates, almost 1,500 clipart images, hundreds of graphic doodles, and dozens of badges, ribbons, and watercolor clipart.

Every item can be previewed in Toolbox, and purchased in Toolbox, and then opened in Pages. So, Toolbox for Pages is a free app which is really a mini-store, where you can purchase the templates and art you want for Pages.

Why not just sell the templates and art in the Mac App Store? Yep, you can do that, too? Isn’t 21st century retailing just wonderful?

The Apple Villagers

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