This simply needs more publicity. Up-vote so Google will find a human to do a proper support!
Or maybe let's talk about the root issue here and not just try to use social media and HN in the place of formal support paths.
KDE Connect removed from Google Play store for violating new policy on SMS
131–140 of 176 posts
Re: KDE Connect removed from Google Play store for violating new policy on SMS
#132Horror stories like this one crop up every now and then. The other time they locked all the G Suite accounts of an entire company just because one of the employees has made a couple of bad chargebacks for some Android apps on his private account that was supplied as a recovery email for his company account. And they didn't even provide a reason, the company had to investigate and find out on their own.
That particular story was completely made up. It was implausible to begin with, given that G Suite is a business product with contracts that doesn't just get "banned", and Google confirmed that they weren't aware of any such incident and failed to get in touch with the author. This comment is a great example on the effectiveness of spreading unsubstantiated FUD. Last discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1…
There are small companies, running on grandfathered free Google Apps for domains accounts. It is still somewhat different product than the current G Suite.
Re: KDE Connect removed from Google Play store for violating new policy on SMS
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was afraid of having to do exactly that, create a new app with a new name and move all of the customers over... I ended up fixing it eventually by somehow clearing all versions in alpha/beta channels and uploading a new fixed version without the SMS permission with increased version number multiple times, and then bubbling that up to production. For reference, we only used READ SMS permission in this app to improve…
we only used READ SMS permission in this app to improve the phone number validation process What's wrong with the SMS Retriever API [1] which seems to be designed explicitly for this purpose? [1] https://developers.google.com/identity/sms-retriever/overvie...
That API looks great, but it is not part of the Android API. It is Google Play services API (i.e. won't work on Kindles and Chinese phones, you will need separate solution for them).
Re: KDE Connect removed from Google Play store for violating new policy on SMS
#134And google is supposed to launch a gaming console today that streams from the cloud. It's bound to generate a ton of support cases, I wonder how they will handle that. I also wonder how they deal with the countries that require a publicly listed phone number and address to be able to contact them.
>It's bound to generate a ton of support cases, I wonder how they will handle that. They would have to try hard to be worse than Xbox Live Support. Customer service is dead for most consumer electronics.
I've found Live to have great support. Console arrived with a broken disc drive - shipping label seen sent within an hour, and a free (download) game for the trouble; wanted to cancel a transaction and the site was bugging out - sorted in about five minutes in the online chat; controller broke - free shipping label and back in about a week; console developed a fault in use - ditto.
Re: KDE Connect removed from Google Play store for violating new policy on SMS
#135This simply needs more publicity. Up-vote so Google will find a human to do a proper support!
Or maybe let's talk about the root issue here and not just try to use social media and HN in the place of formal support paths.
I have read many articles where people got ban/reject and no human ever talked to them. No right to defend.
Re: KDE Connect removed from Google Play store for violating new policy on SMS
#136It's kind of ridiculous that Google is very active in shutting down legitimate apps like KDE Connect but paid clones of open source apps, or apps that promise to upgrade Android the version [1], are still happily up for download. [1] https://old.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/b1ske7/stupid_apps...
The thinking behind the Google business scenario is just annoying from a user's point of view, like they are shutting down Inbox and Allo for no good reason (http://bit.ly/2ThUGHX). When users are happy with something then why would you go for shutting down that thing?! It's not like you don't have the developers to run the thing.
Re: KDE Connect removed from Google Play store for violating new policy on SMS
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
An average person doesn't need to remove Play Store to install F-droid. But if that average person want to remove Play Store (and Play Services blobs) completely from his devices, he still can use and update the most of his apps using Yalp. https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.github.yeriomin.yalpstor...
I had forgotten about Yalp. Wouldn’t you still encounter compatibility issues with apps that require Play Services functionality?
I used LineageOS with microg on my Nexus 5x for a long time, and it mostly worked. With Magisk Hide I could use my bank apps. But I never got Lyft, Uber, or Bird to work properly.
Re: KDE Connect removed from Google Play store for violating new policy on SMS
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
I had forgotten about Yalp. Wouldn’t you still encounter compatibility issues with apps that require Play Services functionality?
An average person would be amazed by the fact most of apps he is using actually work perfectly without Play Services, despite the fact almost all of them declare Play Services in their manifests as absolutely required. This stay true even for the games, although some functions like in-game purchases and 'social' things may not work.
> "although some functions like in-game purchases and 'social' things may not work."
Some may even consider that a feature.
Re: KDE Connect removed from Google Play store for violating new policy on SMS
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
That version has the SMS feature removed.
Yes but the tweet says that Google 1) completely removed the app and 2) is ignoring their calls for support. Which seems to be false.
1) They did, until he removed core functionality and re-uploaded
2) They are, hence the removal of functionality and re-upload
>Which seems to be false
How...