Google Bans Tethering App From Android Market

narramissic writes "Maybe Android and the Android Market aren't so open after all. A developer who contributed to the WiFi Tether for Root Users app reports that Google has banned the application from the Android Market. The developer writes in his blog that Google cited a section of the developer agreement that says that Google may remove applications if they violate the device maker's or the operator's terms of service. T-Mobile, the only operator to offer an Android phone, expressly forbids tethering phones to a computer. This incident raises some interesting questions, the developer notes in his blog. 'Does this mean that apps in the Market have to adhere to the ToS for only T-Mobile, even when other carriers sign on? Will all apps have to adhere to the ToS for every carrier that supports Android phones?'"

Comments

Real?

[Anthony_Cargile]

I assume this is real, and if so this is just one example of Google rejecting an app for their mobile platform; Apple is notorious for it. The company where I work has been waiting on an app from a prominent home theater equipment manufacturer to pass Apple inspection, but it has failed several times in the past 6 months due it's low-level hardware usage, mainly in the area of networking.

I wouldn't normally bash Apple for their iPhone platform, but the restrictions placed on apps is just too limiting compared to Android (unless you factor jailbreaking), but it's popularity makes it a must for mobile development so you have to just accept it. That said, I thought anything could run on Android granted it compiled and you distributed it but I guess I was wrong, according to this.

Re:Real?

[Anthony_Cargile]

*sigh* - It's the application Crestron has been promising for the past few months, even going so far as displaying it at CES 2009 even though it is still trying to pass Apple's inspection for the app store. We won several awards at CES '09, but here's the thing: we are also an Apple dealer, so we sell iPhones and this app lets us integrate what we now sell with the high-dollar Crestron home theater infrastructures we've been setting up for years.

Again, jailbreaking is not an option, as Apple would get a tad pissed at us hacking their products, even more so since we sell them based on a huge contract we had to sign in order to do so. These solutions are anything but "turnkey", by the way, as we've done contracting work for several owners of Forbes list companies. Not to take a dig, but your sig is starting to make sense...

Re:Real?

[jmorris42]

> we are also an Apple dealer

Ok, so that would kinda preclude jailbreaking. But it is still true you (and Crestron) are leaving money on the table by being tied to Apple's whims. You can't sell a product you don't have. Unless Apple would yank your dealer agreement for daring to use other products, and if they are that anal get out NOW, ya should keep in mind that the world doesn't revolve around em and be prepared to use somebody else's hardware when they get in your way. Enough folk did that and they might become a little less pissy.

> These solutions are anything but "turnkey", by the way, as we've done contracting work
> for several owners of Forbes list companies.

Turnkey is what large companies usually want. Guess you are doing something unusual.

Re:Real?

[Anthony_Cargile]

But it is still true you (and Crestron) are leaving money on the table by being tied to Apple's whims.

Trust me, if everybody were using Android or Windows Mobile, we would be either developing or using apps for those platforms, but the vast majority of our customers use iPhones and since we sell them we promote them to our customers so we can integrate the products we sell with our solutions and profit off of both.

There's something in R&D I can't talk about that involves a far different and 100% cross-platform (web-based) solution that doesn't have to succumb to anybody's restrictions save for our own, but it is still under heavy development and confidential at this point, but it just goes to show that we are exploring our options without burning any bridges.

Turnkey is what large companies usually want. Guess you are doing something unusual.

Maybe I misunderstood, although a more appropriate term would be "touchkey" (my poor attempt at humor).

Re:Real?

[linhares]

Actually, google is playing hardball with tmobile: "A Google spokesperson tells Ars, "We inadvertently unpublished the applications for all carriers, and today we have corrected the problem so that all Android Market users outside the T-Mobile US network will now have access to the applications. We have notified the affected developers."

Re:Real?

[SenseiLeNoir]

Admittedly, the android market is not the ONLY place you have to download applications. The G1 does allow installs (once you enable the option) from other sources, so its not as bad at the iPhone.

My T-Mobile UK data plan DOES allow tethering. Its called Mobile Broadband Plus, and indeed does allow you to use a phone as a modem (and I have used it on my N95). Hmm, so does this mean I cant do tethering on my G1? Its a bit unfair I am being held to the terms of some T-Mobile contracts, especially ones not in my own country.

Re:Real?

[AvitarX]

As someone who has used Crestron equipment (in a business setting), I can say the ability to use an iPhone as a remote at home would be great.

It has a great screen with touch capabilities, fairly long battery life, and stays with the owner. The App could sell for the price of the Crestron controller, and still be worth it, as I wouldn't want to carry and extra device around the house, or have remotes all over, but it would still be cool to be able to control audio room by room to suit my current location.

Now, I don't actually know what Crestron does for a home setting, so I could be way off, but it still would seam ridiculous to say people don't care if they need extra controllers vs something they already have.

I know that if I were choosing between 2 products, and one needed a dedicated controler, and the other used my G1 with an application, there would be very little decision making involved, as long as the one using the G1 was good enough, the great one with a dedicated controller would lose.

T-Mobile does support tethering

[StrategicIrony]

The T-Mobile MDA and the follup, T-Mobile Wing are both based on Windows Mobile 6, which includes a tethering app as part of the operating system.

T-Mobile always supported tethering with my old MDA (that's a rebranded HTC Hermes).

So... is it an android rule, or does T-Mobile just not bother to stand up to Microsoft who supports it on all of their phones?

hmmm..

With different carriers

[mikesd81]

This incident raises some interesting questions, the developer notes in his blog. 'Does this mean that apps in the Market have to adhere to the ToS for only T-Mobile, even when other carriers sign on? Will all apps have to adhere to the ToS for every carrier that supports Android phones?'"

I would think, and it's only a guess here, that once other carriers come on board w/ the Android, they would have a notice by the app if it would violate the ToS of the carrier. I don't know how they would enforce it, though.

No crazy restriction for Windows Mobile Apps

[Jamz]

This is why I use and develop for Windows Mobile.

I can write my app, I don't have to pay anyone or tell anyone.
My app can do whatever I want, to the limits of possibility.
I can sell my app or give it away to enrich the platform.

I'm not so keen on these App Store ideas - or phones that require you to upload your app to the mothership so it can be validated that it doesn't conflict with any one else's future business plans.

Just compile, run, and distribute .... whats wrong with that?

Re:No crazy restriction for Windows Mobile Apps

[Yosho]

I can write my app, I don't have to pay anyone or tell anyone.

Out of curiosity, is that actually true? Last time I checked, the only way to compile applications for the Windows Mobile platform required that you have at least the "Standard" edition of Visual Studio, which will set you back $250. The free Express version can't do it. While the Qt toolkit is free, it requires that you have Microsoft's Windows Mobile SDK installed, which requires that you have VS Standard installed, so that won't work, either.

Is there some free development solution I don't know about?

Re:No crazy restriction for Windows Mobile Apps

[sw155kn1f3]

You can run .net apps on phones and PDAs. And any express edition will make you .net app.
Windows Mobile is very open platform and easy to develop for. Marketing, usability departments for it etc seems to be run by idiots though.

Re:No crazy restriction for Windows Mobile Apps

[pilot1]

The Android Market is entirely optional; if you want to, you can write apps and distribute them apart from it, the same as you do with Windows Mobile.

forbids tethering?

[seebs]

I asked about tethering, they sold me a phone with a data plan. It works. They told me I could use it tethered.

WTF?

Re:If only

[rachit]

If I had a few billion dollars lying around, I would start a new wireless provider or buy an existing one.

I'd just offer a pipe and sell bandwidth with packet shaping. I wouldn't care what you run on the network. I'd let vonage / skype, etc. sell their services and let whatever phone run on the network (that passes FCC regulation).

I don't know if its feasible, but i'd also offer two low level network calls to send packets at different QoS levels. Email, text messages, podcast syncing can go at a low QoS level while voice and active web browsing can go at a higher.

I'd still charge plenty for my service and I'm fairly certain I'd still get a ton of customers.

T-Mobile's tech support didn't get the memo.

[WolfWings]

Oookay, if T-Mobile bans tethering their phones, why have they helped me and my mom seperately to configure their phones to tether over bluetooth to our laptops? Hell, I'm running Linux, that didn't even phase them, they still helped me find the command-strings I needed!

Re:If only

[Simple-Simmian]

The reason I don't use my cellphone for "internet" and email is because AT&T wants to rape me economically if I choose to do so. All this crap is useless if I have to pay 50 cents a min for it. Until AT&T loses the put a meter on it mentality I never will.

Re:If only

[moosesocks]

My refutation lies in the assumption that you can always "lay more pipes" for terrestrial connections, while it's WAY more difficult to add capacity for wireless capacity, which is an inherently shared resource.

There are tricks that can be used to improve capacity, although none of them are particularly straightforward or inexpensive.

But, yeah. From the application layer, cell providers are indeed "dumb pipes." However, given the fact that bandwidth is a finite and scarce resource, it does make sense to bill based upon usage, even if that usage eventually gets measured in 'kilobytes' as opposed to 'minutes'

something is fishy

[speedtux]

To be fair, cellular bandwidth is fundamentally limited, and has been extremely costly to deploy. It's not particularly surprising that the carriers want to recoup their investment.

Unlimited 3G plans (including tethering) in Europe are a fraction of what they are here in the US, and that is with more government regulations, more usage, and more available services. In fact, 3G in Europe isn't even an issue anymore--you get it everywhere--carriers are mostly done deploying 3.5G and have started 4G deployment.

Re:If only

[smallfries]

I take it that Three don't operate in your area? They offer a range of services based on cheap bandwidth - but it is metered and you get silly charges if you go over. They provide a simple display of how much has been used that the customer can access and leave it up to them.

Their 3Pay dongle service has lots of different pricing plans, but the best low-usage one is 10euro for 1GB/data. The top-up lasts for 30 days. If you have higher usage they sell 5/10GB plans on a monthly basis.

The business model is based around being a cheap carrier of data. It means a reasonable price for permanent mobile "broadband"* connection. Of course, they got shafted in the 3G license bids and so are perpetually the underdog trying to beat the incumbent players in the market - maybe you don't have that type of competition where you are? They were the first company to effectively make all voice traffic free (by offering 500mins of xnet traffic for a stupidly low amount a month) and pushed the other carriers into going the same way.

I'm not sure about how their costs stack up across Europe, but in the UK they have one massive sunk cost (their license fee) that is so large in comparison to their running costs that they have to pile it high and sell it cheap. As a result don't expect functional support. Their Indian support lines are terrible, and I had to work out how to get their dongle working in the first place as it shipped with the wrong settings and it didn't feature on their tech support flowchart. But they currently sell mobiles with pre-configured Skype access that can be used effectively for free ... if people want a Walmart for mobile data they are positioned to provide it.

*100KB/s is better than my first broadband connection, but it's not the 3Mb/s promised for the tech.