Zact not only lets you control the amount of minutes, texts, and data allocated to your plan as the billing cycle trudges on, but actually lets you do it from inside an app on your phone. Even if you set it all to unlimited, Zact charges you only for the cheapest plan that includes what you actually use. And if you'd just rather set up limits for budget reasons, the app lets you scale your allowances up and down on the go to make sure you stay in the brackets you want. And if you decide you do want more minutes this month after all, you don't even have to put down the phone to get 'em.
Dynamic, pay-as-you-go plans aren't entirely new, but unlike any other provider we've ever seen, Zact actually lets you buy data specifically for use by certain kinds of apps. If you only use your data for Twitter, for example, you can buy unlimited Twitter data outside (or instead of) a normal data plan. And the same goes for email, or GPS. How well Zact can keep up with what new apps do what, and whether or not that's more cost effective than just buying a little all-purpose data remains to be seen, but the prospect is neat, and the flexibility is promising.
Zact also has a bunch of crazy data-sharing options. At the one extreme, you can share your whole plan and permissions to change it. At the other, you can set up sub-accounts and limit the amount of texts, minutes, and megabytes they can use. You can even set up use profiles that restrict app-use and other permissions based on the time of day, so that little Billy can only text you during school, or can't boot up any games after 9 PM.
