ORPHANED: Google Voice Mobile
What happens when Apple removes an app from sale in the App Store? Specifically, what happens to all the existing users who had already downloaded (or bought!) it?
Trouble is, I couldn’t authenticate with Google. I triple-checked my credentials but the app would just throw an error on launch and that was that….a quick Google search informed me that, sure enough, the app no longer worked. Apparently, Google had modified the Voice API such that authentication now worked differently than it did when GV Mobile was written. Because the app no longer had Apple’s seal of approval, I had little recourse
The TUAW article is an interesting read, raising questions about whether it’s safe to rely on an app that you know has been withdrawn from sale.
But there’s another one too: is it 100% legal for Apple to make “free lifetime updates” a core feature of all Apps (which they have so far), and yet simultaneously deprive users of the ability to update said apps, due to changes in Apple’s policy?
Obviously, this argument has come up a million times already – every time Apple rejects a bugfix submission on grounds that meant they shouldn’t have accepted the original app.
But in cases like this, where the “original” app actually ceases to work … does the user perhaps have additional power to sue Apple? Sooner or later, this could get ugly…
November 25th, 2009 at 9:56 pm
I would think it would, since everyone who gets a new phone has a 30 day period in which they may return it due to it not meeting their needs. Since the functionality of the device is effectively changing, and it’s completely outside the user’s control, then they would have a case.
November 26th, 2009 at 1:05 am
I am going back to a blackberry, Apple can kiss my rear end.
November 26th, 2009 at 4:56 am
One of many reasons I got a DROID. The walled-garden left a bad taste in my mouth.
November 26th, 2009 at 5:58 am
I just checked out the version of Google Voice Mobile that you can get through Cydia, and it authenticates me just fine.
I guess the moral is, jailbreak your phone. :)
November 26th, 2009 at 4:30 pm
Answering Robotech Master’s suggestion: Recent news about worms spreading on the iPhone suggest that jailbreaking your iPhone might create a security problem.
November 26th, 2009 at 4:53 pm
[...] est née avec le rejet de l’application Google Voice par Apple et le but est de relever la liste des causes de ces rejets, afin que chacun se fasse une idée. Gageons que le site se remplira [...]
November 26th, 2009 at 8:13 pm
@softwarecandy
The only reasons worms get iphones.iTouches is because some ppl are stupid enough to not change their root password. its really easy to do, if you jailbreak to it as soon as you ahve Cydia up.
-Happy jailbreaker!:)
November 26th, 2009 at 11:44 pm
Sorry guys I don’t agree with you guys. It’s their store and their product. They can do what they want. You don’t like it, don’t buy it. YOU got caught up in all the “glamour”. Everyone needs to grow a pair, and do what needs to be done. Go find another phone move on and don’t complain. Hurting a business in the profit margin will do more than BUYING their product and then crying about it… Wasted energy, and utterly pointless. 20 Million iPhones sold and the amount of negative press, and yet people are buying?
November 27th, 2009 at 12:18 pm
I, for one, bought an iPod touch because I knew the power and potential of the device, provided it was jailbroken (which it now is). I have never been happy with Apple, but I knew the kind of neat stuff I could do, and all the cool games and stuff freely available in the App Store. The only two things that Apple could do to make it better would be just get off their freaking high-horse, and let Adobe integrate Flash support into the OS to get good results, and to add Bluetooth keyboard support. With those two enhancements, I could get rid of my Windows Mobile PDA, and not even miss it. Although I really like the USB Host features on my PDA, I could do without them on my iPod (although THAT would be FREAKING AWESOME). It just seems like everyone employed with Apple, with a few exceptions (all of which are grunt employees, none of the higher-ups), think that Steve Jobs and every Apple designer talks directly with God for their ideas, and are therefore perfect. I do like what the guy at PhoneDog.com said about the iPhone vs. the Droid in regards to camera, that the iPhone camera for pictures is just much easier to use and faster, even if it’s not as high-def as the Droid’s camera. I think the Droid is pretty awesome, but it seems like the processor is a couple hundred MHz too slow. An 800 MHz processor would’ve been better suited to the purposes.
November 28th, 2009 at 8:33 pm
Switched from iPhone to the Droid. Google Voice works just fine, of course. It may not be as polished as the iPhone, but I haven’t looked back. (other than laughing at these poor folks who try to help make the iPhone a better product and get kicked in the butt by Apple).
November 29th, 2009 at 2:57 am
i jail broke my ipod touch. i now have the google voice app. i hope apple reads this.
November 30th, 2009 at 9:50 am
@RB808,
Normally I’d agree with you but surely if at some point apps you’ve paid for stop working, then it;s a different kettle of fish and lawsuits are possible.
I, for one, will be switching to a different brand of phone once my contract comes up.
December 2nd, 2009 at 3:59 am
isnt just removing an app kinda like lifetime warrenty except when we discontinue it. If you dont like our polocy, to bad. Go cry to a wall.
January 27th, 2010 at 3:08 am
Google Voice is a lifesaver. I can’t believe some of the features it offers, for example the ability to screening calls. I have invites if anyone wants one. Also I hope that Apple rethinks the GVoice App, hwo could such an unruly app get killed by Apple?