The battery life for my cellphone sucks.

I mean. To be fair, the battery is probably a modern technological marvel. But the phone screen is bright and ginormous, and there’s 4G running, and who knows what else is going on in the background and the phone can’t last the entire day.

Purportedly, there’s an app for that.

I downloaded JuiceDefender, which more or less says all the things I want to hear. Specifically, “extra hours of battery life,” and “runs by itself.” I guess it does some sort of hocus pocus magic in the background instead of me having to fiddle with Airplane Mode and data use settings and hacker mode and I don’t even know.

So I installed the app, and…haven’t noticed a difference at all.

JuiceDefender has three different app versions: Free, Plus ($1.99), and Ultimate ($4.99). I guess the sell is “If you like the Free version, then upgrade to Ultimate.” But the free version doesn’t seem to do anything. Why should I be compelled to give these guys more money? This business model sucks more than my batter life.

On the other hand, it’d be a lot smarter if the Free version was just a 30-day trial of the Ultimate version. If the app was really worth its mettle, 30 days is enough time for me to settle in to the routine of (finally!) not having to perform battery-saving acrobatics and midday phone recharges, and JuiceDefender becomes something I truly can’t live without. Of course I’ll spend some pocket change on something that eliminates experiencing my small version of technology hell (#firstworldproblems).

Instead, I have no idea if the app is any good. And I used the $5 to buy a sandwich.