No ads and no artificial feature limits
The free edition of the first THS used advertising and feature restrictions. We want to try a different approach with THS2. The Android app itself, the field journal, local maps and the core tools remain free. We do not want to make field work worse merely to push someone toward a purchase.
Local data belongs to the user. Maps can stay entirely on the phone, be transferred manually and used without a THS2 account. Internet access and a subscription should never be required to record a trip, view a map or save a finding.
Paid plans fund cloud infrastructure
Server storage, backups, moving maps between devices, generating OSM regions and georeferencing rasters require disks, processing time, traffic, redundancy and ongoing maintenance. Those are the capabilities covered by paid cloud plans.
Every account includes 250 MB at no charge for trying the service, storing a few small maps and testing the website-to-Android workflow. Maps added from the shared store do not consume personal quota because the server keeps one shared copy.
A paid plan buys convenience, not permission to use the app. It can be enabled for the period when it is useful, while maps already downloaded to the phone continue to work locally. Plans do not renew automatically.
What if everyone stays on the free version?
Yes, that risk is real. Most people may find that local maps and the complimentary 250 MB are enough. But deliberately weakening the free version to improve conversion would be a poor foundation for a tool people rely on in the field.
We expect optional cloud plans to appeal to people for whom they save time: owners of large libraries, users of several devices and anyone preparing maps through the web service. We will learn from actual costs and real workflows, adjusting prices and storage openly without taking away working local features.
If you do not need the cloud but would still like to thank us for the app, there will also be an option to make a one-time voluntary donation. A donation does not unlock hidden features or make the app more complete; it simply supports continued development.