May I assume for a moment that you’re different than the rest of our fellow Mac users who have too much month left over at the end of their money? In a reeling economy, that’s becoming a universal problem. Except among the greedy.
There are three kinds of people who needy a currency converter app on their Macs. Those with a bona fide need to convert money from one currency to another. Rich people. Thieves, scoundrels, and money launderers.
Currency Conversions Are A Dime A Dozen
There is no doubt that many Mac users have a legitimate need to convert currency from one to another. Maybe it’s curiosity. Maybe they’re buying something online but from another country. Maybe their bookie is chasing them and they need to know monetary rates in Argentina.
Whatever it is, legitimate or illegal, or curious, money conversion utilities are less than a dime a dozen.
Yes, that’s means free, almost free, very cheap, cheap, and you paid for that?
Currencies is the latest Mac App Store app to take advantage of the unwitting, the rich looking for a bargain, or anyone else with a need to know currencies and $3.00 US to burn for what’s usually available for diddly squat (officially, it’s the lowest level of zero).
Here’s what you get in Currencies:
It’s an attractive, calculator-like pop-down-from-the-Mac-Menubar app that converts over 130 currencies. Currency rates are updated from the internet. There’s even a shortcut key to pop up the converter.
Nice, huh? And only $2.99 plus a Mac and an internet connection. Or, you can use the converter Dashboard Widget that comes with your Mac. It converts a bunch of things, including—ta da—currencies. Free.
Or, if you’re still strapped for cash, don’t have a Mac, can’t afford a free Dashboard Widget or a cheap app that converts money, you can use any one of a few dozen currency conversion web sites.
Yes, it’s OK to borrow a friend’s internet-connected computer, Mac or PC.
Currencies is a nice app, attractive, easy to use, might just have the conversion rate for US dollars to Elbonia coin, but it’s really just re-inventing a wheel re-invented many times over.
The difference here is eye candy look and feel, and the unsuspecting, the naive, the rich and greedy, who are really the market for a monetary conversion app in the Menubar. It’s nice, but you gotta ask yourself, when free versions are plentiful, Why?
