Google Ends Free Text Messaging Party for iPhone Users

Darrell Etherington — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 20:53:24 +0000

The iPhone, despite aggressive attempts to block such efforts by AT&T (with Apple’s help), did occasionally offer some apps that actually managed to save users some money in one way or another. For instance, for a while, people could tether their phones to their computers in order to share the data connection without having to pay an additional, expensive fee to AT&T or getting a separate dongle and data subscription. And, for a brief time, you could also send unlimited, free text messages using your data connection, in case you didn’t have an SMS option attached to your subscription.

I say for a brief time because Infinite SMS, one of the apps that allowed you to do this, was recently informed that the service they provided would no longer be available. They were not, however, cut off by Apple, as might be expected. Instead, the bad news came from Google, whose Google Talk service they were taking advantage of to offer free, web-based SMS to buyers of their own app.

When it was available for purchase, Infinite SMS cost 99 cents per download, but its developers (Inner Fence) have now removed it from the App Store, saying they could not leave it up in good conscience. They are not, however, planning to offer a refund program to those who’ve already purchased the app. That probably leaves a significant number of people out a dollar, since the app quickly rose to the Top 10 list of paid apps.

Google explained why they decided to close off access from Infinite SMS and other similar applications in a statement released Wednesday.

Infinite SMS is a third-party app that has been using Google technology to provide free SMS for users, while we were paying for the cost of the text messages. While Google is supportive of third-party apps, we’ve decided we can’t support this particular usage of our system at this time. SMS chat is still just an experiment in the early testing stages in Gmail Labs. We’re blocking all external XMPP clients from sending SMS; we’re not singling out Inner Fence.

Other applications, like Textfree Unlimited ($5.99, iTunes link), another Top 10 paid app, still offer free text messaging, since they don’t depend on Google Talk for transferring messages.

We’ve seen before how friendly the relationship between Google and Apple is, despite the two companies having competing smartphone platforms. To me, Google’s excuse doesn’t pass the sniff test. Instead, I think they’ve been asked by Apple (with AT&T’s urging) to cut off the service in order to try to corral users back into using cellular SMS plans. There’s more than one way to reject an app, after all, and this one draws far less negative attention. We’ll see how long Textfree Unlimited can continue plying its trade before someone figures out how to close that back door, too.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

A Touch of Daylite

Matthew Bookspan — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 15:00:01 +0000

At Macworld Expo 2009, the folks at Marketcircle, makers of Daylite, are announcing and demonstrating their new iPhone application: Daylite touch. Marketcircle originally announced this tool in the summer of 2008 and many of their users have been anxiously awaiting this new companion product.

What can we expect from this new iPhone application? A bunch of new features, to say the least:

Daylite touch users can simultaneously book meetings, view other users’ calendars, delegate tasks, manage contacts, projects and opportunities and look at their short term history -– all offline.
Daylite touch syncs over the air with 3G, Wi-Fi, or 2G EDGE, allowing Daylite users to coordinate with other mobile colleagues or with workgroups back at the office.
Daylite touch offers a more distinctive set of collaborative productivity features than Microsoft Exchange or Apple MobileMe.

Sounds reasonably impressive. What does it look like? Here is an advanced screenshot.

From this screenshot, we can see a pretty rich Calendaring application. I like the fact that Daylite touch is utilizing the iPhone’s screen real estate to best benefit readability. This screenshot alone makes me salivate at what the rest of the application will look like.

At the Expo, I will be meeting with Martketcircle’s CEO, Alykhan Jetha to receive a full demonstration of the new product. I will follow-up with my impressions of the app after I receive this hands-on demo.

Marketcircle expects that Daylite touch will be available in the first quarter of 2009. They will announce pricing at that time as well. Given the cost of Daylite itself ($149 retail), I expect that Daylite touch will not be inexpensive.

Regardless, the ability to have a full-featured CRM/GTD application on the iPhone or iPod touch is noteworthy, as to-date there are not too many quality choices available.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

GigaOM » Apple

Google Ends Free Text Messaging Party for iPhone Users

A Touch of Daylite