Freemium. You could get basic functionality for free, but certain tasks would cost money. I seem to remember thinking that the balance between what was free and what was paid was a bit off.
I see now. So they were trying to go off of in app purchases? That's not a bad way to do it. I think the problem is monetizing a service like that WITH competitors like google now is just a hard problem in general. I could see where it would be a good idea if they had some good lockin. It was definitely worth an attempt.