Remember when in-flight Internet access was the next big thing? That’s so 2010.

On Thursday, Aircell, the company behind the Gogo in-flight Wi-Fi service, unveiled a new platform that will give passengers access to a broad array of free and fee-based content delivered to their personal Web-enabled devices.

Of course, Internet access will still be available to anyone who wants to purchase it, but the new service is a tacit acknowledgment that not everyone feels the need to be connected mid-flight.

“We realized we have to offer an experience beyond paid Internet connectivity,” said Ash ElDifrawi, executive vice president and chief marketing officer. “People said they wanted gaming, they wanted to shop, they wanted destination information.”

For Aircell, which also announced it is changing its company name to Gogo, the effort is part of what CEO Michael Small referred to as its desire to be “everybody’s favorite part of flying.”

For some passengers, that will mean reading People magazine or shopping on Gilt.com, both of which will be free offerings made possible through paid partnerships. For others, it’ll mean streaming movies for as-yet-undetermined fees. According to ElDifrawi, travelers who opt for the streaming movies will even be able to resume unfinished films for up to 24 hours after their flights.

“It’s certainly the next step in the evolution of in-flight connectivity,” said travel technology expert Michael Planey of H&M Planey Consultants. “They can offer a little enticement — 'Hey, open up your iPad, look at this stuff for free' — and then, hopefully, people will buy the package to get to the Internet.”

What the system won’t do, says Planey, is spell the end of traditional seatback entertainment systems — at least not for a decade or more. Rather, it’s a way to add entertainment options without adding weight or ripping open interiors and to expand the market to bring those options to aircraft that have never had them, such as the MD-80.

The new Gogo platform is expected to go live in the fourth quarter of the year, launching first on Delta Air Lines. The video-on-demand portion will be available later, based on the results of a video-streaming pilot program that Gogo and American Airlines are currently testing on select flights.

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Rob Lovitt is a longtime travel writer who still believes the journey is as important as the destination. Follow him at Twitter.