[Golf11]

hempadvocate said:

It's not about blame... it's about good customer service. I guess if you went to a coffeeshop and ordered a $3 coffee and they gave you a $1 tea because they ran out of coffee you'd just say, "unfortunate things happen."

NO, if i wanted coffee and all they had was tea..i'd take my a$$ someplace else where i could buy what I wanted. But I'd make the decision BEFORE the tea was poured, not AFTER the fact.

[kresh]

So what does this prove? It proves that since Google has entered the phone business with the Android platform they are now susceptible to pressure from the carriers.
There is no way that anyone can convince me that this shut down was not due to a phone call from AT&T to Google, or maybe several calls from European carriers as well.
How dare Google interrupt the the cash cow SMS plan subscription stream.

[hempadvocate]

For the record, I didn't buy this app... but had I bought it on Sunday only to find out that on Wednesday it stopped working I'd sure as heck want a refund.

Though I did recently buy the Tweetie app and the very next day I read that Apple has denied an update to it (which Apple has since authorized), which does not bode well for confidence in the app store and assure customers that apps with bugs that developers have patched will get approved.

The lesson is... Buyer Beware.

[Golf11]

hempadvocate said:

The denied permit issue wasn't about a zoning requirement but about an arbitrary decision by an employee to deny your permit while your neighbor was granted a permit to build the same deck on their house two days before you. To think that you could have bought something on Sunday that stopped working on Wednesday and not have a chance for a refund is poor customer service.

you're entering facts that were not in your initial post. Give up...your logic in this matter is FLAWED no matter how you try to parse it. Try this one on: you want hbo but only have basic cable, you buy an box that descrambles the signal, your cable company finds out about it and disconnects your service and then prosecutes you for stealing their service. Are you entitled to a refund from the person who sold you a box that you knew is basically STEALING from the cable company? You aren't entitled to ANYTHING.
If you want SMS buy an iPhone or pay AT&T for their text messaging service, it's really that simple.

[hempadvocate]

But you were handed the tea, which you assumed was coffee and the employee didn't tell you that it wasn't coffee.... so no refund for you. Are we, as AppStore customers supposed to hold off buying apps now so that we can make sure that Apple will approve updates or that the services the apps tie into will continue to function for more than a few days?

[Golf11]

hempadvocate said:

But you were handed the tea, which you assumed was coffee and the employee didn't tell you that it wasn't coffee.... so no refund for you. Are we, as AppStore customers supposed to hold off buying apps now so that we can make sure that Apple will approve updates or that the services the apps tie into will continue to function for more than a few days?

No, if you're buying an app that circumvents a legitimate service to make it "cheaper" for you to do something or helps you avoid pay for the service being offered on your device, chances are it won't last long and you buy at your own peril. Man up and take responsibility for your own actions.

[Golf11]

hempadvocate said:

But you were handed the tea, which you assumed was coffee and the employee didn't tell you that it wasn't coffee.... so no refund for you. Are we, as AppStore customers supposed to hold off buying apps now so that we can make sure that Apple will approve updates or that the services the apps tie into will continue to function for more than a few days?

You are too funny, each time one argument is shot down, you throw something else in the mix that wasn't there before.

[Moof_in_Charge]

@ kronos46
Your view is flawed and your use of terminology is horrible. Read Google's explanation again.

[hempadvocate]

Golf11 said:

> you're entering facts that were not in your initial post. Give up...your logic in this matter is FLAWED no matter how you try to parse it. Try this one on: you whant hbo but only have basic cable, you buy a box that descrambles the signal, your cable company finds out about it and disconnects your service and then prosecutes you for stealing their service. Are you entitled to a refund from the person who sold you a box that you knew is basically STEALING from the cable company. You aren't entitled to ANYTHING.


If you want SMS buy an iPhone or pay AT&T for their text messaging service, it's really that simple.

The developer wasn't selling any thing that was stealing from google... Google has simply changed their business strategy on the use of a technology they made available for free to other IM clients.

And I don't know why you keep saying buy an iPhone, cause clearly I have one... and I pay extra for more SMS.

It's the principle of customer service that you fail to grasp... it seems the AppStore policy is ALL SALES FINAL BUYER BEWARE. And if an app gets through the vetting process that causes damage to the iPhone OS or poses a security risk then the buyer has no recourse because Apple can point to the Developer and the Developer can point to Apple.

[Golf11]

[quote name='hempadvocate']
>

Golf11 said:

> > you're entering facts that were not in your initial post. Give up...your logic in this matter is FLAWED no matter how you try to parse it. Try this one on: you whant hbo but only have basic cable, you buy a box that descrambles the signal, your cable company finds out about it and disconnects your service and then prosecutes you for stealing their service. Are you entitled to a refund from the person who sold you a box that you knew is basically STEALING from the cable company. You aren't entitled to ANYTHING.
> If you want SMS buy an iPhone or pay AT&T for their text messaging service, it's really that simple.
> The developer wasn't selling any thing that was stealing from google... Google has simply changed their business strategy on the use of a technology they made available for free to other IM clients.

And I don't know why you keep saying buy an iPhone, cause clearly I have one... and I pay extra for more SMS.

It's the principle of customer service that you fail to grasp... it seems the AppStore policy is ALL SALES FINAL BUYER BEWARE. And if an app gets through the vetting process that causes damage to the iPhone OS or poses a security risk then the buyer has no recourse because Apple can point to the Developer and the Developer can point to Apple.

Are you dliberatley obtuse or what? No one was trying to steal from google, but buyers bought the program to by-pass AT&T or avoid paying Apple for the more expensive iPhone (it was a way to AVOID paying full freight). So either way it was a way for the buyer to pay $1 for an app designed to "deprive" Apple or AT&T from money it was entitled to recieve for using SMS messaging on the device. I might add, the price for SMS is outrageous...just like the added features on landline phones, but it is what it is. The program couldn't do what it did without mooching off of someone else, so in that regard the app itself should have been FREE. That's the argument you should be making and buyers should have deduced that when making a decision...I think it's called risk/reward evaluation of purchasing decision...a little exercise most adults use.

[hempadvocate]

Golf11 said:

No, if you're buying an app that circumvents a legitimate service to make it "cheaper" for you to do something or helps you avoid pay for the service being offered on your device, chances are it won't last long and you buy at your own peril. Man up and take responsibility for your own actions.

Under that reasoning then it makes since why Push Notification has not been made available on the iPhone yet... if IM clients (like AIM's iPhone app) could use Push Notification then there would be less need for SMS messaging, so perhaps AT&T has pressured Apple to not implement the service they hyped and promoted over a year ago.

[Golf11]

[quote name='hempadvocate']
>

Golf11 said:

> No, if you're buying an app that circumvents a legitimate service to make it "cheaper" for you to do something or helps you avoid pay for the service being offered on your device, chances are it won't last long and you buy at your own peril. Man up and take responsibility for your own actions.Under that reasoning then it makes since why Push Notification has not been made available on the iPhone yet... if IM clients (like AIM's iPhone app) could use Push Notification then there would be less need for SMS messaging, so perhaps AT&T has pressured Apple to not implement the service they hyped and promoted over a year ago.

We're not talking about PUSH (that's a different discussion for another MacWorld story), we are talking about this app and google denying access to it. You get points for trying to change the subject though.

[hempadvocate]

Golf11 said:

or avoid paying Apple for the more expensive iPhone (it was a way to AVOID paying full freight).

Is that something new with the iPhone G3? Does the more expensive one gives you more SMS messaging? I ask seriously because I have a first generation iPhone and the original plan for the 4GB and 8GB only included 200 SMS messages by default.

I'm curious how this $1 app would have helped me avoid paying Apple for the more expensive iPhone... since in order to have purchased the app I'd already have to have an iPhone. Unless you mean that iPod Touch users could use this app to avoid having to buy an iPhone (and subsequently enter into a long term contract with a cellular carrier)

Golf11 said:

The program couldn't do what it did without mooching off of someone else, so in that regard the app itself should have been FREE. That's the argument you should be making and buyers should have deduced that when making a decision...I think it's called risk/reward evaluation of purchasing decision...a little exercise most adults use.

Sometimes it makes sense to pay for something that provides a better user interface... I could use GIMP for free but I'd prefer paying for Photoshop instead. Or more reasonably, I could just open Safari on the iPhone and go to twitter.com
but having a well designed and streamlined dedicate app that cost a few bucks is worth it. I'm hoping that Twitter doesn't decide to come out with their own Twitter.app and block others from accessing their service. Just like I'm hoping Apple doesn't arbitrarily deny app updates to apps that I have bought from the AppStore.

[kronos46]

OK MoofinCharge bad terminology aside the story reads:

"Google has claimed no grievance with Infinite SMS other than its success. Their given reason for the block isn't abuse or wrongdoing; it's that we brought too many users (and thus too much cost) to an experimental service," Inner Fence said.

The company said it built the application using an open protocol made available by Google for just such a purpose. "We never could have guessed that the two of us would write an app too big for Google," the company's founders said.

Google said it would continue to offer free SMS through Google Talk, but it will block Infinite SMS and other non-Google clients that use the service to deliver text messages starting on Wednesday.

So the question then should be what is Google's "Open Protocol" to be used for. Now in other posts someone made a remark that maybe Google was pressured by the phone carriers to put an end to this. If so then that comes as no big surprise.

If Google's open protocol limited the developers to what they can & can't do. Then the sole blame falls onto the developers of the App for the loss of money to the buyers. But if this was not part of Google's protocol then the blame fully rests on Google for any wrong doing. But more than likely the developers should pay back the money spent on the app cause it was probably listed in the very small print about making money off this feature.