Android Text Messages Intermittently Going Astray

theodp writes "Reports from Engadget and others suggest that Tiger Woods and Brett Favre might want to avoid Android for the time being. It seems Android's default text messaging app still has horrible text messaging bugs that can that intermittently send texts to the wrong person. 'This is ticking me off like no other technology glitch that I experienced in recent years,' reads one unhappy camper's post on a lengthy Help Forum thread opened on March 16th. 'If a bank deposited my paycheck into another person's account I wouldn't stress so much cause I can always get the money back. How the hell do you take words back? "Oh sorry boss you had to find out that I think you're an idiot, can I still keep my job, please please please?"' Over at Google Code, Issue 9392 — SMS are intermittently sent to wrong and seemingly random contact — carries a priority of 'Medium,' even though it has 600+ comments and has been starred by 3,600+ people."

Comments

It's open source

[93 Escort Wagon]

So fix it yourself.

Re:It's open source

[snugge]

well thats what you think... mouhahahaahahah

Re:It's open source

[flaming error]

Who are you talking to, exactly? Is it just theodp, or everybody on Slashdot, or do you want my grandma to roll out her own new Android patch?

Does releasing the source code absolve the vendor of any responsibility to support their product?

Re:It's open source

[commodore64_love]

Software should be free.
Texts should be free.
Free, free, free (or almost free).

"When phones are on, they are ALWAYS connected to the cell phone tower. The phones and cell phone towers exchange little packets worth of information back and forth so when ever a call comes it, they can find you straight away. Can anyone guess how big the packets are? If you guess 160 characters, you are right." In other words they are charging for a service that should be free, because the phone and tower are *already sending* Texts to one another. It costs nothing for the company to append that Text to the outgoing packet.

"When you think of it on a kilobyte level it costs us $1.09 per text message Kilobyte. The markup for costs is 7300%." So using an typical 2000 messages/month, that's just 320,000 characters or 0.00032 gigabytes. It shouldn't cost 25 dollars (what VirginMobile charges me). Continued here: http://www.spoiledtechie.com/post/The-Actual-Cost-of-Texting2c-Short-Codes-and-a-731425-Mark-up.aspx and here: http://www.google.com/search?q=cost+of+texting

To summarize: Phones are "texting" towers constantly as part of the cellular standard.
The appending of a personal message costs nothing extra for the company.
The rates are outrageously high for the minuscule data passed.

Re:It's open source

[darkpixel2k]

In other words they are charging for a service that should be free, because the phone and tower are *already sending* Texts to one another. It costs nothing for the company to append that Text to the outgoing packet. "When you think of it on a kilobyte level it costs us $1.09 per text message Kilobyte. The markup for costs is 7300%."

Wait...so if the packets back and forth between the tower and cell phone are 'free' because it's a required part of the cell protocol, how is charging $1.09 per text message a 7300% increase? 0 * 73.00 != 1.09.
By that math, aren't you implying that text messages actually cost $0.014931507? (0.014931507 * 73.00 == 1.09)

(Also, since I haven't had to do any math more advanced than balancing my checkbook since highschool over 10 years ago, I won't be the least embarrassed or surprised to find out that my math or formula is wrong.)

Re:It's open source

[inKubus]

Oh sorry boss you had to find out that I think you're an idiot, can I still keep my job, please please please?

"If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place." --Eric Schmidt

Re:It's open source

[jo_ham]

Google responds to these claims with "you're holding it wrong."

Re:It's open source

[icebike]

I'm wondering if Handcent or other 3rd party apps are affected by this bug also or if its just in the Google app code only.

None of the other FREE (or paid) SMS apps have had this reported.

Further, its very rare, and complicated to reproduce this, unless you frequently have a lot of message threads between many people going on, and respond asynchronously.

"Darth Mo" posted how a specific a sequence of messages can cause this problem, and it seems to involve the Back Button on Android, after reading a message from one contact but then deciding to respond to a different prior message thread.

Re:It's open source

[commodore64_love]

If you read the website (I linked to it), the author says texting costs 109 cents per kilobyte sent. But Verizon's data cost is only .015 cents per kilobyte. So do some quick math and it's a HUGE markup in cost. 109 divided by .015 == 7300 markup according to the website.

Actually that's not correct. It's actually a 109/.015 times 100 == 730,000% markup.
And also my math says Verizon Data costs $40/5 gigabyte == 0.0008 cents per kilobyte.
But it doesn't really matter.
The point is the amount charged for sending 160 characters is ridiculous. It should be a fraction of a penny not 20 cents. Even Congress noticed this and did an investigation for possible price collusion between the companies: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10037221-38.html

Re:It's open source

[Squeeonline]

I know correlation =/= (or !=) causation, but I just got an email saying that this bug has been upgraded to critical. A /. success story? I think so!

Re:It's open source

[icebike]

The value of a text message is what ever the customer will pay for it. It has nothing at all to do with cost.

Android comes with Google Talk. It is Free (included in your data plan) and is not arbitrarily limited to 160 characters.

ON most cell networks, SMS messages utilize a signaling path that is used to notify phones of call arrival. (Specifically using the Mobile Application Part (MAP) of the SS7 protocol).

That path has a finite capacity. When that path is busy, calls go direct to voice mail without so much as a ring on your handset.

This type of traffic needs to be moved to the data plan instead of the network signaling path. Google Talk (which is simply Jabber) is the perfect tool for this and works across all platforms (cell phones, computers, tablets, etc).

Re:It's open source

[davester666]

This is how manufacturers can differentiate their handsets from everyone else's, by fixing bugs in Android.

"Our phone will only text the wrong person 5% of the time. Most other Android phones do it 10% of the time!"

Re:It's open source

[Gordonjcp]

When you think of it on a kilobyte level it costs us $1.09 per text message Kilobyte

How the hell do you get that figure? Are you actually paying to send SMSes, or something? If you are, stop. It's 2011 now. Send your phone back to twenty years ago and get a new one.

Re:It's open source

[shmlco]

Whom, precisely, does the OP pay to fix this problem on his phone?

Re:It's open source

[kgrr]

Commodore64 love, you said "When you think of it on a kilobyte level it costs us $1.09 per text message Kilobyte. The markup for costs is 7300%." I'm partially convinced it comes from ignorance rather than a B5 joke or troll. To suggest that phones are constantly texting the tower completely ignores the fact that there is a lot of overhead to carry those 160 bytes. It's not like you can send 160 bytes for free on a cellular system or a wired system for that matter. Signalling to page the phone and establishing connections and packet headers for those messages are not free. Due to mobility the overhead is much more than a wired system. If you had ever read the various cellular standards, you would realize the complexity involved in texting 160 bytes of data. In GSM/GPRS/EDGE systems (1G, 2G, 2.5G) text messages are carried as a single voice frame. It takes a large amount of signaling overhead to locate the handset and route information to it. In fact, to send 160 bytes of text takes the same overhead as a call setup and release and endless location updates. In UMTS/HSPA/HSPAplus systems/LTE (3G, 4G) text messages are carried as packets. It still takes a large amount of signaling overhead to constantly track the handset and route information to it. To send the 160 bytes requires packet headers for each of the layers and many more packets just to set up the data transfer. Consider that TCP layers have to be brought up to exchange two layer three packets that carry the 160 byte payload. The messages that are constantly sent to track the phone. Those are signalling overhead. It's very difficult to compare a data connection being used to carry a 160 byte text messages with a data connection being used to carry a huge payload such as a huge JPG, MP3, etc. A 160 byte text message is dominated by signalling and setting up of various data layers. Downloading an MP3 song is dominated by the data payload. The rates are outrageously high for the minuscule data passed due to the large overhead involved. It's like asking UPS or FedEX to ship an air sample across the country for free. Afterall, air is free!

Re:It's open source

[arielCo]

I wonder how much would Motorola charge me for the fix, since the Milestone they soid me is effectively locked at the bootloader so they're the only ones who can fix the phone.

Re:It's open source

[commodore64_love]

I don't know why you are surprised.
Not all plans include unlimited texting. VirginMobile used to have a "Texter's Delight" plan for ~2 pennies per text, but they eliminated it cause they claimed to be losing money. I honestly don't see how. I suspect an untruth.

Re:It's open source

[arielCo]

To summarize: Phones are "texting" towers constantly as part of the cellular standard.

Not exactly. AFAIK, in GSM and UMTS the standalone dedicated control channel (SDCCH) is occupied on both originating and terminating sides.

The appending of a personal message costs nothing extra for the company.

The store-and-forward SMSC servers cost very real money, and the hardware does limit throughput.

The rates are outrageously high for the minuscule data passed.

As per the first point, it's not about data but signalling resource usage. Don't think too much of sending over GPRS - a voice call would be interrupted and there's still the smallish data overhead involved anyway (some 30 octets per 140 bytes of payload).

Re:It's open source

[icebike]

Thank you for that paragraph explaining exactly what I said in one sentence.

Re:It's open source

[gothzilla]

An ancient piece of wisdom...
"If you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all."

Unfortunately we live in an age where narcissism abounds and people actually believe they should be immune to the consequences of their actions.

Re:It's open source

[AlXtreme]

I suspect they were losing money, compared to their earlier plans that is.

As long as customers don't mind paying for 160 bytes of text telco's will happily accept and make it last as long as they can. They'll start to see their texting-profits erode soon enough once more customers (read: teens) discover flat-fee mobile internet with apps like whatsapp can save them a hunk of cash every month.

Re:It's open source

[demonlapin]

More like an Engadget success story.

Re:It's open source

[commodore64_love]

You said no such thing. You claimed the price "has nothing to do with cost" as if pricing is pulled out of thin air. That is false. The price is set by company vs. company competition that slowly-but-surely drives it down to the level of actual cost for said product.

Re:It's open source

[muridae]

Whomever the OP wishes. He or she is free to invest as much or little of his or her own time into whinging about it, or to accept bids to have it fixed.

Re:It's open source

[Anonymous Coward]

Further, its very rare, and complicated to reproduce this, unless you...

Unless you are one of the 4200 people that it has happened to enough to care enough to report it.

Re:It's open source

[AmberBlackCat]

I think the point is those people who say open source is so much better than closed source are full of it.

Re:It's open source

[4phun]

It is funny as hell when the drug dealers who are not high tech wizards get hit by this Android bug.

Re:It's open source

[drsmithy]

"If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place." --Eric Schmidt

"If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear." -- Pretty much every authoritarian in history.

Re:It's open source

[hyc]

Google has been grossly negligent from Day 1. I paid ~ $600 for my G1 phone 2 years ago, and got zilch for customer support from Google, and nobody at T-Mobile was smart enough to even know what to do with any Android technical problems. When people are paying this much real money for a product, by god you better offer them real technical support.

You can't find any dedicated email address or phone number to report issues, the best you can do is file a bug report that's unlikely to be acted on, or post on groups.google.com and hope some bored developer with a few cycles to spare reads your post. That's completely inexcusable for the price people pay for these devices.

I've stuck with it because I've been able to download the source and fix issues I've run into, but only after many days of beating my head against the poorly or non-documented interfaces in the system. But again, regular customers paying real money shouldn't have to do that. For this kind of money, there should be dedicated customer support people who are proficient with the OS and the range of devices, and there should be complete documentation on all of the bundled features.

Re:It's open source

[bonch]

So you believe installing and maintaining cell phone towers and server networks costs nothing? Why do so many readers of Slashdot have such an uninformed, anti-capitalist view of how the world works?

Even the software you think of as free, such as Linux, is worked on by paid developers working at companies with a vested interest in the software. Nothing in the world is truly free. It's all based on an exchange of something.

Re:It's open source

[xnpu]

Take a business class. Cost and value are hardly related. Some businesses give costly things away for free, others charge heavily for low-cost items. It just depends on the business model or the company.

Re:It's open source

[Patch86]

To be fair, my phone contract offers me "unlimited" text messages (it might actually be 3000 SMS, but I never go near that), and a high-but-finite data allowance (I've never gone over it, but probably could if I started using my phone for web-video and the like more regularly).

I doubt Jabber uses much data in the grand scheme of things, but there's no reason why I shouldn't continue to use the SMS service that (as the GP already pointed out) is going on anyway, rather than moving that traffic to the already crowded data traffic.

The problem isn't that users shouldn't be using SMS, the problem is with some unscrupulous contracts charging through the teeth for it.

Re:It's open source

[CdBee]

If you're stupid enough to pay $600 for an unproven first generation product you deserve everything you get

Re:It's open source

[Cillian]

But some actual economics will tell you this is only true in a perfect competition, which the mobile market is not. Some providers /do/ do vheaper texts and do not have 100% of the market, proving this. Aalso, there is no reason texts should cost how much sending them costs + sensible markup. Disregarding profits, cell companies have X running costs and so have to get ~X money from somewhere, but not necessarily proportionately to costs. See: rich bohemoths making mad losses on something to get into the market.

Re:It's open source

[RichiH]

> This type of traffic needs to be moved to the data plan instead of the network signaling path.

Wrong. As the Ping/Pong system the GSM base stations and GSM handsets play in order to judge their relative positions, signal to noise ratios and prepare hand-overs to other base stations needs to be played anyway and as SMS messages are simply piggy-backing onto those signaling/measurement messages, SMS is the perfect service. The messages need a certain length for proper measurement. Thus, it has literally no overhead in the airwaves. None, zero, nil.

When GSM started in Germany, SMS messages were free. No one thought you would be able to charge for a service like that.

So, I think you mean:

As Telcos are milking people dry with the help of the SMS, this traffic needs to be moved to a data plan where pricing is more reasonable.

Re:It's open source

[EvilTwinSkippy]

For $600 you could have gotten an iPhone with all of that. In 2007. Today, you could pick up 6 late model, or two high end, or one gold plated latest model with the extended warranty, tinted windows, and curb feelers.

What was the argument for the Android again?

Re:It's open source

[kindbud]

Why do so many readers of Slashdot have such an uninformed, anti-capitalist view of how the world works?

Well, to be fair they were educated in a world run by capitalist oligarchs who view public education as a cost center, not as a basic feature essential to the continued existence of an advanced society.

Re:It's open source

[vegiVamp]

*whoosh*

Re:It's open source

[vegiVamp]

Good luck implementing that on all the ancient phones out there. Yes, you must remain backwards compatible. That is not optional.

You do make a valid point of the finite capacity of the channel, though. Operators have been expanding that capacity year after year, up to the point where even new year's traffic is mostly smooth these days - at least, here.

That upgrading also has a cost associated with it. Wether or not that cost justifies the price of texting is debatable, though.

Re:It's open source

[Thing 1]

Their sentence was not complete: "losing money, compared to our competitors."

Re:It's open source

[ultranova]

"When phones are on, they are ALWAYS connected to the cell phone tower. The phones and cell phone towers exchange little packets worth of information back and forth so when ever a call comes it, they can find you straight away. Can anyone guess how big the packets are? If you guess 160 characters, you are right." In other words they are charging for a service that should be free, because the phone and tower are *already sending* Texts to one another.

The towers are owned by a private entity. Said entity doesn't exist to benefit the public, it exists to generate as much profit as possible for its owners. Thus, if it can extract more money from you buy charging for text messages, it will.

Only nonprofits are likely to offer services at the price it costs to produce them, and that very fact hinders their growth. As a result, only the Government is likely to be an efficient (cheap) service provider from the customers point of view. Reflect on that irony for a while :).

It costs nothing for the company to append that Text to the outgoing packet.

That simply makes the entire text message pure profit. And since most American cellphones are vendor-locked, there's none of that pesky competition getting in the way.

To summarize: Phones are "texting" towers constantly as part of the cellular standard.
The appending of a personal message costs nothing extra for the company.
The rates are outrageously high for the minuscule data passed.

To summarize even further: Awesome business plan from master capitalists.

Re:It's open source

[node 3]

>>>The value of a text message is what ever the customer will pay for it. It has nothing at all to do with cost.

That's only true to a point. As companies compete with one another, the tendency will be for Company 1 to drop the price to 15 cents/text. Company 2 will undercut them and drop it to 10 cents. Company 3 will observe this and say, "We can beat all of you," and drop it to 5 cents. Eventually competitive price pressure will lower the customer's fee to just above the actual cost. Say... 1/10th of a penny.

Is this satire? If not, how did you write this without realizing how wrong it is? Text messaging has had about a decade for this to happen, and it hasn't. There's a strange thing around here where people quote theory as though it's reality, when reality quite clearly contradicts the very thing they just said!

The Scotsman Smith called this the invisible hand.

And if you actually read Smith, instead of what people say about what he wrote, you'll quickly realize that the invisible hand is just something that sometimes leads to the betterment of society, and has absolutely nothing to do with prices being lowered to just above cost.

Re:It's open source

[node 3]

So you believe installing and maintaining cell phone towers and server networks costs nothing?

I'm sure he said nothing of the sort. He said it costs nothing extra, since the system is already doing the equivalent of text messaging anyway.

Why do so many readers of Slashdot have such an uninformed, anti-capitalist view of how the world works?

Why is it that every time someone points out a flaw in capitalism, someone is always ready to decry that person as an "uninformed anti-capitalist"?

Even the software you think of as free, such as Linux, is worked on by paid developers working at companies with a vested interest in the software. Nothing in the world is truly free. It's all based on an exchange of something.

I'm 100% confident the software that "I think of as free" on my computer *is* actually free to me. I'm quite certain that in the vast majority of the free software I've used in my life, very, very little of it involved "and exchange of something" between me and the programmers or the companies funding the development.

Re:It's open source

[ultranova]

An ancient piece of wisdom...
"If you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all."

Let me introduce you to a fancy new concept called freedom of speech. It has arguably done more than all other political changes combined to make the world a better place.

Unfortunately we live in an age where narcissism abounds and people actually believe they should be immune to the consequences of their actions.

Indeed, comrade. Here in Soviet Russia we have absolute and perfect freedom of speech. And any who uses theirs to say anything of comrade Stalin that comrade Stalin disagrees with will pay the full price for their insubordination. This is proof of our superior morality, for with us, speech has consequences.

In fact, comrade gothzilla, why don't you "put your money where your mouth is", as those imperialistic pigs say? Tell us your real name, so that we may attribute your authoritarianism to you. You wouldn't want to be a narcissist and hide behind a pseudonym, now would you?

Well, "gothzilla"?

Re:It's open source

[ultranova]

It is funny as hell when the drug dealers who are not high tech wizards get hit by this Android bug.

What kind of idiot would conduct criminal proceedings over an unencrypted, very-likely-monitored, text based channel? Seriously?

Re:It's open source

[geekoid]

I have n't been able to dupe this myself.
weird.

OTOH, if you are saying stuff behind you best friends back that would turn them into a former best friend, then maybe you never really where BFF?

Not that it excuses this bug, but just that the attempt to ramp of the alarm in the article was pretty ham handed.

Re:It's open source

[Tacvek]

Except of course in the case of collusion, or as actually appears to be the case here, no company feels that the expenses of trying to compete based on SMS pricing (in order to actually compete in a reasonably short term requires some form of advertising. Being able to go below a cent a message would also almost certainly require updates to the software being used, as the original billing software specs are unlikely to have contemplated sub-cent pricing for SMS.

(Not to mention that if text messages were $0.001, "Verizon Math" would be an even bigger issue, as more people would be incorrectly quoted fractional cent prices.)

Re:It's open source

[GORby_]

Well, my milestone is happily running Froyo, with cloud 2 device messaging working smoothly :-)
If you don't mind rooting it, and playing around a little bit, you can get it on your phone quite easily (or at least I would expect you to be able to do it, since you're browsing slashdot...).
It is also more stable than the previous official Motorola versions I had running on it. Only the 3D Gallery app restarts sometimes (I have to look into this...).

Re:It's open source

[tehcyder]

So what I'm reading is that Android suffers catastrophic failure of the text message system in unpredictable ways. I'll never use their text message system as long as that's a problem.

I think you've managed to be even more hysterically exaggerated than TFA. Congratulations.

Re:It's open source

[tehcyder]

If you don't mind rooting it, and playing around a little bit

Actually, yes I do fucking mind having to hack a consumer product to get it to work properly.

Re:It's open source

[tehcyder]

An ancient piece of wisdom... "If you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all."

Unfortunately we live in an age where narcissism abounds and people actually believe they should be immune to the consequences of their actions.

I don't have anything nice to say about Creationists, does that mean I should just keep quiet about their stupidity?

Re:It's open source

[tehcyder]

What was the argument for the Android again?

That it's not a fucking iPhone, mainly.

Re:It's open source

[gothzilla]

Thanks for pointing out that you completely fail to understand what freedom of speech means and that you didn't even bother reading the link you provided.

All speech has consequences. Sometimes they're good sometimes not. Telling your mother that you love her usually has good consequences.

"Freedom of speech" only covers negative consequences that the government might want to hand out over your speech. It doesn't cover anyone else, including your boss. Tell him off and he can fire you. That's where the narcissism comment comes from. It takes a pretty huge ego to believe that you should be able to say anything you want without there being any repercussions.

No idea what that has to do with soviet russia and authoritarianism either. It's called common sense most places.

Re:It's open source

[ultranova]

That's where the narcissism comment comes from. It takes a pretty huge ego to believe that you should be able to say anything you want without there being any repercussions.

So why didn't you tell me your real name, "gothzilla"? Are you a narcissist? Put your money where your mouth is.

No idea what that has to do with soviet russia and authoritarianism either. It's called common sense most places.

It is the version of "free speech" that existed in Soviet Russia and still exist in every dictatorship to this day: speak your mind and suffer your punishment.

SMS

[ae1294]

Hey Larry there's this bitching party down town tonight with strippers and blow!

Re:SMS

[thegarbz]

Hey ae1294, see you there.

Sincerely
The Fuzz

Re:SMS

[ae1294]

Who do you think is bringing all the coke from the evidence room?

Google Voice

[Wonko the Sane]

Does the bug affect the Google Voice client as well or only the native SMS client?

Re:Google Voice

[moogied]

No it does not affect the Google voice client. That is all internet based... (except for obviously the end point). Its important to note this is only on certain builds. My G1 has never done this...

Re:Google Voice

[Anonymous Coward]

G1? What the fuck, are you a goddamned caveman?

hey what is it with Hungary these days

[Mister Pedant]

!

sent from my android

Re:hey what is it with Hungary these days

[arielCo]

hey Zucchini, IDGI, care to explain? Is Hungary relevant in some way?

Re:hey what is it with Hungary these days

[larry bagina]

no

Google support

[Animats]

Eventually, Google may have to realize that some of their products actually require customer support.

Re:Google support

[vlueboy]

Eventually, Google may have to realize that some of their products actually require customer support.

This topic comes up a much after Google released the Nexus. Ad agencies have no customer support.
  "Products" never receive any tech support... their owners do. Let me further remind us all that we aren't the real "customer;" that's actually the telcos, and we can't hear them asking for any help on our behalf so far.

Re:Google support

[hedwards]

The Nexus One was sold direct to consumers early on via Google's website. Yes, IIRC, they did state that HTC is responsible, but somebody is ultimately responsible for responding. Too many of the problems were with Android for Google to be able to sidestep responsibility.

That being said, I have a Nexus One and in general it's a great phone. It's just a couple of minor problems in terms of my use.

Re:Google support

[jimicus]

Google don't provide the technical support, the handset vendors and operators do. And they're in an industry which typically doesn't provide much in the way of significant software updates once their product is released, preferring to dedicate developer time to working on the Next Big Thing.

OTOH, Google are quite used to being able to ship beta products and fix them with later updates.

Put it this way, I've got an Android handset. It's great as far as it goes, but I keep finding irritating bugs which simply shouldn't exist in anything that's production quality. Things like "Address book shows numbers if I scroll through entries and choose the relevant one, but not if I search".

I need to go back to my operator, but I'm fairly sure they'll reload it with the latest version of the firmware then wash their hands of the matter - if it turns out I've got it set up in such a fashion as to make the bugs come about, I have no doubt that'll be my problem. Bugger the exorbitant cost, my next phone will be an iPhone 4. I'm sure it'll have foibles of its own, but they're unlikely to be in the basic usage.

Re:Google support

[jd2112]

Perhaps you can submit help requests via SMS!

Re:Google support

[Totenglocke]

Bugger the exorbitant cost, my next phone will be an iPhone 4. I'm sure it'll have foibles of its own, but they're unlikely to be in the basic usage.

As long as you don't count making a phone call or the alarm working "basic usage". =D

Re:Google support

[kgrr]

That customer support is overhead provided by the carrier. When something goes wrong, who are you going to call?

Re:Google support

[Loopy]

This. Among other issues. I have a friend who just went to a Windows MObile 7 phone and he tells me even that was a major upgrade from his iPhone 4 due to primarily usability and performance among other issues. Naturally, he didn't specify and my father's brother's sister's cousin's former roomate probably wouldn't bother elaborating if you asked me for a "qualified, trusted source or GTFO," but hey, we voted with our wallets, which is what the fanboys usually tell us to do anyway. ;)

Re:Google support

[bonch]

Everything you described sounds so much like Microsoft and Windows that it's almost depressing, especially the part about shipping beta-quality products and iterating over successive versions to finish them.

Re:Google support

[jimicus]

It is, isn't it? I'm given to understand the iPhone is just as bad, albeit in different (and usually more subtle) ways.

Re:Google support

[RichiH]

> I'm sure it'll have foibles of its own, but they're unlikely to be in the basic usage.

The iPhone does not have a LED to indicate missed calls/emails/etc. It's driving my cow-orkers nuts. Also, I have Swype, they don't.

I.e. if I were you, I would try and play with an iPhone _very_ thouroughly before you make the switch. The two above are deal breakers for me, you might be fine with them. But then, the same applies to all other (mobile) OSes.

Re:Medium is appropriate...

[CajunArson]

but not a performance or security related issue.

Randomly sending SMS messages to the wrong recipient is a huge performance and security bug. Performance: if the intended recipient does not get the message, the phone is not performing a basic function correctly and the effective messaging performance is zero. Security: It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that sending SMS messages to the wrong people could definitely have a negative effect on user privacy, making this a BIG security bug.

Use TextSecure Anyway...

[Anonymous Coward]

Android users should consider upgrading to Moxie Marlinspike's TextSecure anyway. Not only does it support storing text messages in an encrypted database as well as over-the-wire encryption with other TextSecure users, but it sends the messages to the right person every time!

Re:Medium is appropriate...

[gladish]

ya, because getting the message to the wrong person really fast is much more important than getting it to the right person. I would also argue that a message being sent to the wrong recipient is a security issue also.

Re:Medium is appropriate...

[osu-neko]

...but not a performance or security related issue.

o.O

You're obviously not qualified to work on any projects where security is an issue.

That would explain Sergey Brin's text to me

[Nova Express]

"Where t Hell iz my Hookers n Blow??? U is 2 hours late for NY parT, dog! Bet that fuk Zuckerberg's ParT already has Hookers n Blow! WTF????"

Re:That would explain Sergey Brin's text to me

[outsider007]

I'm not saying he's behind it, but somewhere Assange is smiling.

This is fucking hilarious.

[the linux geek]

I can tell you right now that if Microsoft Outlook had a bug that sent emails to random contacts, we would not be seeing comments that say "Never happened to me, so not an issue" or "Don't blame Microsoft, there are other clients available."

Oh, and the "fix it yourself" people need to shut the fuck up too. That's fine when it's an open-source project with fifty users hosted on sourceforge, not when it's in-production software that runs on millions and millions of phones.

Re:This is fucking hilarious.

[Belial6]

As much as I hate to see MS and Google in the same light, I have to admit that in this case, you are absolutly correct.

This is a high priority bug that has no excuse for not being fixed within days of it being reported.

I thought the "fix it yourself" folks were being sarcastic. I can't imagine that anyone would really try to claim that this isn't a serious bug that Google needs to fix. The fact that there are free alternatives like Handcent does not in any way absolve Google from fixing the default text messaging client.

Re:This is fucking hilarious.

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Oh, and the "fix it yourself" people need to shut the fuck up too. That's fine when it's an open-source project with fifty users hosted on sourceforge, not when it's in-production software that runs on millions and millions of phones.

Settle down, it's just karma balancing itself.

The more time you spend shouting from the rooftops how superior your preferences are, the more people are going to get in line to take you down a peg.

Consider that the next time you decide how loud you'd like to shout about how OSS has more eyeballs.

Re:This is fucking hilarious.

[FlyingBishop]

It's not reproducible. Even the reporter can't reproduce it. No shit it's not fixed.

Re:This is fucking hilarious.

[bonch]

Outlook? Hell, if this issue occurred on the iPhone, it would be the next month-long controversy on TechCrunch and Engadget, right up there with "Gee, when I smother my iPhone, the signal strength drops"-gate.

Re:This is fucking hilarious.

[coolmadsi]

This is a high priority bug that has no excuse for not being fixed within days of it being reported.

Considering it happens for some people sometimes, and some people not at all, and when I had a read through the comments yesterday there wasn't a definite method to reproduce it 100% of the time, it sounds like it could be a Heisenbug, which may take longer than a few days to fix (most of the time would probably be trying to figure out what is going wrong as opposed to actually implementing a fix).

Definitely bug. One or several remains to be seen.

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it is not a fat finger issue. It IS sending messages to the wrong recipient without notification, and even sorting them in a different thread than where it was sent; there are steps to reproduce in the bug report. Your assumptions about the issues are misleading others just as badly as FUD could.

Re:Bug or inaccurate tapping?

[David Jao]

There appear to be a few failure modes; the one we definitely experience on the Gingerbread-powered Nexus S involves being routed to the wrong thread when you tap it either in the Notifications list or the master thread list in the Messaging application, so if you don't notice, you'll end up firing a message to the wrong person.

Not sure whether to file this under FUD, but the error isn't nearly as sensational as the title or summary seem to indicate. Certainly an issue if it turns out that presses are being fuzzed out to different locations than intended, but very possibly an issue of "fat fingers" on the part of customers.

Fat fingers can't explain why messages that the phone logs as having been sent to person A are in fact sent to person B, which some people have reported.

However rarely this bug strikes, it is something that should never happen, and it is definitely a showstopper bug for many many users.

Re:Yet I have never seen it...

[joshki]

Neither have I.

One wonders...

[emeitner]

One wonders how this bug rates on Google's internal bug tracking system and if any of the "me too" people have contacted the vendor of their particular phone first?

Re:One wonders...

[icebike]

As mentioned in other threads, its rated medium, even tho a lot of people bitch about it.

That probably changes Monday morning since this hit the press (and not just SlashDot over the holiday in a big way.

Nothing succeeds like a little mainstream press in getting Google (and most other companies attention). If you want to speed things along, get your congressman to threaten to hold hearings.

Re:One wonders...

[witherstaff]

Google does seem to take their sweet time on fixing issues. My personal annoyance is the bluetooth discoverability being hardcoded to 120 seconds max. It's been a medium bug for a year now without even a nod from someone if it's even on their radar for future fixes. I really like android. Now that it's the most used phone OS maybe it should get some more support.

But

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been an android user for quite some time and have experienced the above-mentioned problem. However, there is a reason it's marked as a "medium." The bug in question is in fact there, but the problem only occurs while opening the contact to text. This means that I might think that I clicked on "Amy" but "Zach" might open instead. A lot of people don't pay attention to this and quickly type away and press "send." However, the problem was there and seems to have been fixed in 2.3. Also, I have not experienced it recently while using cyanogen 6.1.

Re:But

[east coast]

Ahem! FTFA: where sent text messages can appear to be in the correct thread and still end up being sent to another contact altogether. In other words, unless you pull up the Message Details screen after the fact, you might not even know the grievous act you've committed until your boss, significant other, or best friend -- make that former best friend -- texts you back.

Apparently you have a whole other bug than what is being reported. If the bug was what you had mentioned then the bug should be reported as the wrong contact opening, not the wrong contact getting a text.

Re:But

[the linux geek]

Correct. This bug, while rare, occurs when trying to send a message in an existing thread. The message appears in that thread, and the only way to verify that it was sent to the wrong contact is to view the message details.

Re:But

[segedunum]

No. This has happened to me and it happens when you open a message thread with a particular contact and reply to it.

Re:But

[ZosX]

I've had this happen on my g1 with the ported MyTouch 3G Froyo OTA, but I don't think this is the bug they are talking about. In fact, I've sent txts to the wrong people, because of it, but it was really because I didn't look at the thread and started typing away.

Re:Yet I have never seen it...

[The End Of Days]

Yeah that's it, it's a conspiracy. Excellent mind you have there.

Sounds like a race condition

[Anonymous Coward]

You will think that you are typing a response to contact A and then suddenly the contact name at the top switches to contact B. ... It seems to be affected by a situation where you're typing to contact A and receive a message from contact B.

Sounds like a race condition, and a bleedingly obvious one at that.

While I can't say I know with certainty every detail of this bug, I'm always amazed when even supposedly talented developers get away with this kind of broken thinking. Too many developers are unable to fathom when they have a timing window like this. As a software engineer, this particularly pisses me off. Too often I find co-workers introducing idiotic bugs like this because they don't stop to think or answer basic questions.

As an example, I myself was working on a mobile app in my spare time, and throughout the process found myself asking a lot of questions like... "Can I rely on the user's finger hitting the screen before I get a network event?" The answer is obviously no in all cases. You need to design your UI with that in mind. If you do things like change the meaning of UI buttons in response to network events, you get races like this where the user performs an unintended action. If that's what the cause of this bug turns out to be, I have to say I'm personally disappointed in whichever engineer screwed this up so badly.

Re:Sounds like a race condition

[Renraku]

You know what else was a race condition?

The Therac-25 fiasco.

What does it have in common with this fiasco?

Shitty programming.

Re:Sounds like a race condition

[Pentium100]

Yes, just like hitting a target with a sniper rifle from 10km away. It probably is possible for a small number of individuals, but everyone else will fail.

Also, the "well, we can patch it later" idea makes the programmers debug less. On older devices, where the control software was in ROM (or (E)PROM, a bug in the software meant a costly reprogramming (and a PR hell, since those devices would be "broken" until the users brought them to a repair shop, if the repair (reprogramming) also cost money for the user, the opinion about the manufacturer wold take a big hit) or even the manufacture of a new ROM. Now that it is possible to update over the internet, the firmware became more buggy, I mean I do not need to update the firmware on my VCR or (CPU controlled) tape deck. Or even my old cellphone or PDA (closest thing to an actual computer).

Re:Yet I have never seen it...

[Anonymous Coward]

Normally a single example wouldn't be considered a representative sample, but because it's mark19960, the bug must not be real!

Have you considered that the bug affects not a certain percentage of messages sent, but a certain percentage of users? In which case it won't affect you no matter the volume of message you've sent?

Re:nothing new here

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know why you ever thought Google wasn't worse. Microsoft is great at implementing software (i.e. features). I really can't think of a better company at that. Where they usually fail is in the concept stage, esp. regarding security. Google is much better at that (from an architecture/focus standpoint) even though their software has [a lot] more bugs.

uh.... maybe not

[locust]

If a portion of your user population has enough trouble with your UI that they are 'fat fingering' their way into trouble, then at some point it is _your_ issue.

But that having been said, a quick glance through the support thread shows things like this: "http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/android/thread?tid=345259e6d424bad3&fid=345259e6d424bad300048dfbff785d0c&hltp=2"

The code reverses the numbers before doing its (loose) compare... so uses the 7 last digits.

Bob - 408-555-1234
Fred - 510-555-1234

become

4321-555-804
4321-555-015

And it only uses the first 7 digits, which for both numbers, is "4321555"...
So if you send a message to Fred, and it looks in the cache for the contact, there's a chance it will go to Bob.

Re:uh.... maybe not

[MichaelSmith]

Okay thats interesting. The way the numbering system works in Australia I think a number would potentially match three other numbers:

+61 40 1234567

+61 41 1234567

+61 42 1234567

+61 43 1234567

...would all match. You would have to be pretty unlucky but if all your friends are trying to get 1s and 8s in their phone numbers the odds might be a bit worse.

Re:uh.... maybe not

[jolyonr]

Wow. So there's a x in ten million chance (where x is the number of contacts you have minus 1) that it'll go to the wrong person. *

Stupid, but I don't think this is the problem being seen by so many people.

* - Or something like this. assuming entirely random distribution of numbers and all number combinations being valid and all phone numbers being same length.

Re:uh.... maybe not

[hankwang]

You have entries in a list, each item should map to an object which contains the number AS IS. There's no need to fudge about with names and numbers,

When you're abroad, you have to modify phone numbers by an international prefix. For example, a Dutch phone number 020-1234567 becomes 003120-1234567: a zero is dropped and replaced by the prefix 0031. It makes sense to do pattern matching on the last part of the phone number, although it is debatable whether that is a good thing for other things than incoming calls.

Re:uh.... maybe not

[shadowofwind]

In US, area codes and prefixes aren't even remotely random. A town may have one area code and only a handfull of prefixes, so if your contacts are local than the probability of an ambiguity would be very high. That's the significance of the number reversal.

Re:uh.... maybe not

[Tailhook]

The actual code is here.

Reading the various compare() implementations definitely leaves room for doubt about correctness. The compareStrictly() code is a lovely illustration of the ambiguity that exists in the world of phone numbers. The comparison implementation mentioned above is found in compareLoosely() and is characterized in comments as "similar() not equals()", meaning collisions are possible. Which of compairStrictly/Loosely is actually use is subject to configuration; the caller can't know which is used without examining configuration resources.

Haven't yet seen evidence that this is the cause of the problem folks are having; does the SMS code rely on this? The comments claim the compareLoosely() method is "identical enough for caller ID purposes." One could imagine that when the user hits 'reply' on a message the code might hunt through the phone book using compareLoosely and stop on the first "match", which may be incorrect due to a collision. There seems to be some correlation between reports of this phenomenon and the 'threaded' 'conversation' stuff in Android, which could mean people are relying on 'reply' and getting wrong results.

Who knows. Bugs will happen and phones aren't trivial. The real problem in my mind is that this one has been on the books for a looong time now (six months, approximately) and it's not getting the attention it clearly deserves.

Re:uh.... maybe not

[kgrr]

7 digit number? BS Telephone numbers should be type E.164, not integer You send a text message to +15105551234 it should go to Fred.

Re:uh.... maybe not

[peterhoeg]

The obvious solution is simply to input all numbers with the country code and prefixed with a +. That works all over the world. +3120-1234567 and you're golden.

Re:uh.... maybe not

[julesh]

The obvious solution is simply to input all numbers with the country code and prefixed with a +. That works all over the world. +3120-1234567 and you're golden.

Yes. But:

1. How do you convince users that this is something they want to do? They're not going to do so reliably, so the phone has to do so itself.
2. Often the numbers come from sources other than user entry, e.g. replying to a previous message. The networks don't prefix caller id with the country code, so the phone would have to do it itself.
3. The rules for forming an international number from a local one vary from country to country. Making the phone do it itself is a nontrivial task that opens up more potential bugs.
4. There are other issues than international numbers. For a while a few years back, my phone could be accessed using two different UK numbers, 0973 xxxxxx and 07973 xxxxxx, because there was a change in the numbering scheme pending, but a grace period in which the old number continued to work. Android's fuzzy compare algorithm (if it was implemented correctly and not borked beyond belief) would have continued working through this, identifying the correct source of messages which number was sent and whichever was in the address book.

Re:uh.... maybe not

[julesh]

7 digit number? BS Telephone numbers should be type E.164, not integer You send a text message to +15105551234 it should go to Fred.

Yes, but that's not the issue. By all appearances, if you manually enter the number to send the message to, it always goes to the right destination. The issue is that in certain places, replying to a message through the UI pulls the wrong number into the destination field. The phone seems to behave as if you're replying to a different message to the one you had selected. That could easily be explained by a fuzzy comparison failure.

Re:uh.... maybe not

[Old Wolf]

Why did they write it in Java ?!?

That aside - this theory should be fairly easy to test - for everyone else who has ever had this bug, manually compare the phone numbers of the intended recipient and the actual one and see if they are nearly the same. If not - theory busted (or we have multiple bugs, which is probably more likely!)

Re:uh.... maybe not

[ultranova]

Why did they write it in Java ?!?

Presumably because the target device supports no higher-level language? I suppose that can be excused, these being nothing but glorified telephones after all...

Re:uh.... maybe not

[nahdude812]

You'd have to have two contacts from different area codes with the same exchange and line number (xxx-123-4567) since it looks at the seven last digits. Not (as I think you seem to suggest) two contacts in the same area code, same exchange, and same starting digit (123-456-7xxx).

As other people have mentioned, this is the result of some ambiguity in terms of how a message might arrive, particularly in other countries, where the same number might have different prefix codes depending on where it was sent from.

Re:uh.... maybe not

[shadowofwind]

Yes, it looks like I failed basic reading comprehension. And counting to 7.

Funny, in a sad kind of way, that I got modded up for that, but just got modded a troll for making a perfectly reasonable comment on another thread.

Re:uh.... maybe not

[nahdude812]

Because Android is a Java platform? What should they have written it in?

Re:Medium is appropriate...

[vlueboy]

It seems you consider sending personal data to the wrong destination "not a security issue." Messages are information. Login details routinely travel over them, like when you're resetting a password or something... now you can't know if it really travelled to the right person. If this were SSL you'd be yelling "man in the middle" attack.

There's an app for that

[Rip Dick]

May I suggest downloading "handcent sms", it's far from perfect... but it's way better than the default messenging app. It's very customizable, too.

Re:Bug or inaccurate tapping?

[toppavak]

Interesting, I hadn't looked at the bug reports (RTC[omplete]FA, doh!). That certainly looks like a major bug, although the irregularity (one submitter reported owning two Nexus S with the same build but only seeing the bug on one) of it is extremely curious.

Re:Medium is appropriate...

[Giometrix]

[quote]Over at Google Code, Issue 9392 — SMS are intermittently sent to wrong and seemingly random contact — carries a priority of 'Medium,' even though it has 600+ comments and has been starred by 3,600+ people.[/quote]

It is important to many people, but not a performance or security related issue. Yep, medium priority.

I'd say sending a text to the wrong person is a big security flaw.

Android randomly deletes all of your SMS too

[Anonymous Coward]

If it doesn't send them to someone random it will just delete all of them. http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=5669 That's also labled as medium.

Re:Android randomly deletes all of your SMS too

[cuby]

And the bug has more then a year...

Re:Medium is appropriate...

[Anonymous Coward]

Performance: is in regards to phone performance and responsiveness (raw speed), not user-related effectiveness.
Security: is in regards to phone security, not user-information retention.

You're thinking of functionality and privacy, not the above two terms. And these two categories are larger concerns than performance & security is.

And I'm thinking this entire thread is a waste of time over an utterly pointless statement. Thanks OP.

It's been fixed

[philj]

http://android.git.kernel.org/?p=platform/packages/apps/Mms.git;a=commit;h=7bb3d8cf74ec1e4ae18cb814c17e12a00816f105

Though I guess it'll take a while to get into builds/updates for existing handsets.

Re:It's been fixed

[werdnapk]

Not only fixed, but fixed about 6 months ago.

Re:It's been fixed

[mr_lizard13]

Though I guess it'll take a while to get into builds/updates for existing handsets.

And therein lies the problem with the fragmented Android system.

Re:It's been fixed

[ByteSlicer]

If that's indeed the same issue, then a workaround would be to delete all draft messages before sending an SMS to a new recipient.

Re:It's been fixed

[Golden_Rider]

Does not seem to be the same bug, since people state they had SMS go to persons they never sent a message to before, and the link you posted states a message might go to the recipient entered in an old draft message.

Re:It's been fixed

[yuhong]

Yep, seems like this solves only one case of the bug.

Re:It's been fixed

[bonch]

That is not the same bug being discussed here. SMS messages are going to total strangers, not previous contacts.

Re:It's been fixed

[bonch]

It's not the same bug.

Re:It's been fixed

[RogerWilco]

The fragmentation isn't the problem. The fact that no one has any financial incentive to provide software updates is the issue. The problem is not Android specific.

I think it's essential in the smartphone martket. I think it's only Apple's business model where the manufacturer also has an incentive to update the software and in the end that will be what keeps them alive vs. Google and MS.
As more and more people move to a smartphone, I think that Google and MS will need to retrink their business model. Until a few years ago MS was the only game in town, but now with Apple and Google in the same market, things like this will need to change.

This bug is bad

[mysidia]

But not as bad as the HTC 911 issues

Sending messages to the right contact and making sure 911 calls work are things OS makers should go out of their way to ensure work correctly

Do mobile vendors QA their products anymore?

Re:This bug is bad

[cSquall]

But not as bad as the HTC 911 issues

Sending messages to the right contact and making sure 911 calls work are things OS makers should go out of their way to ensure work correctly

Do mobile vendors QA their products anymore?

I think you mean QC, and the answer is that QC has been significantly downgraded as a priority and a practice in many companies, not just mobile vendors. Your mistake alone highlights the fact that people just don't understand QC and QA, nor the value they bring....

Re:Medium is appropriate...

[Motard]

Meh, information wants to be free. It's not like your personal communications will harm the world. Why aren't you just being open and honest to begin with?

Re:Bug or inaccurate tapping?

[Rick Bentley]

For sure not fat fingers! The first time it happened to me on my EVO I thought I had messed up. Since then I *TRIPLE CHECK* the recipient of every SMS I send. Just today it happened again, sent to one person, they didn't respond after a while so I looked at the thread and my message wasn't there. It was at the end of a thread with a different recipient.

I also notice that when the screen is first coming on, if I select a contact from the call log or a thread from the SMS log that sometimes I get a seemingly random one instead (not one just above or below the one I touched, but one not even on the screen).

Scary.

Re:Definitely bug. One or several remains to be se

[frisket]

This also shows up when a message is sent to someone for whom you have two or more cellphone numbers. I saw a message I had sent my son at his foreign cellphone number (by mistake) coming up as a new thread, which I knew was "wrong". I re-sent it to his local cellphone number and it filed correctly. But both threads had the same name title, and did not have anything to distinguish them (a UI error: they should have the class of device appended in parentheses when the recipient has more than one SMS-capable device).

But if the messages are going to entirely different people, I'd suspect a match routine error, and I'd want to check the code and the data for character-set encoding problems. I would hope by now that everything is UTF-8, but if this stuff was coded by people whose sole language is English, all bets are off.

can i get one?

[__aaqvdr516]

Almost makes me want to buy an iPhone or a Win 7 phone. Actually I don't want (nor do I own) any of these phones. Could someone just make a phone that I can dial numbers on to call someone? Thanks!

Re:can i get one?

[brinebold]

There are no issues with dialing numbers on the Android. You are perfectly able to use an Android phone as if it were an analog telephone handset and this bug does not affect that capability at all.

Re:can i get one?

[shutdown -p now]

Nokia has a wide assortment of phones which do just that, and cost $50 or less to boot (without contract).

Re:can i get one?

[Threni]

I had a Nokia phone, and to be fair, it didn't cost anything to boot once I'd bought it, although the replacement screen wasn't cheap. Then it was stolen, and I got an Android and laughed for a short while about how much better it (indeed any Android phone) is compared to any Nokia phone.

Re:can i get one?

[T Murphy]

Could someone just make a phone that I can dial numbers on to call someone? Thanks!

To whoever makes that cellphone: make it a rotary dial too! (It would be a pain for texting, but it'd be worth it).

Re:can i get one?

[petermgreen]

http://www.sparkfun.com/products/286

Re:can i get one?

[PReDiToR]

Here you go.
You're welcome.

Re:can i get one?

[dbug78]

Here ya go

Tmobile does that too

[bobjr94]

I sent a message to my wife, & she got it but it also went to some random person, they wrote back and asked what we were talking about.

Why bother with QA...

[toby]

When they really just want to push you headlong into the upgrade treadmill?

This also seems to explain how incredibly crappy p

Talk about bugspam...

[Rich0]

Ok, I'll agree that this seems to be an important issue, but the 700 me-toos in a 24 hour period on the issue isn't going to help anybody.

Go ahead and star the issue if you'd like (and enjoy reading the resulting 700 emails you'll get every day from the idiots shouting "this is important). But, there are better ways to get the issue escalated than to spam the bug. This just makes it that much harder for anybody actually working on the problem to fix it. Also, anybody who did care about the issue and who was working on it probably will take their names off the bug as soon as they get into work next week, or at least hit the mute button on the conversation thread in gmail.

If somebody spammed a bug of mine on an open source project like this I'd do two things:

1. Fix the bug.
2. Ban anybody from the bugzilla who posted a me-too.

Me-toos that include helpful step-by-step reproduction scripts, core dumps with symbols, insightful analysis, or whatever are of course perfectly welcome. "This is important!!!" is just whining - yes, it is important, now go find something productive to do...

Re:Talk about bugspam...

[rmcd]

You're right about starring rather than spamming, but the attention had the intended effect. The priority is now marked critical.

Re:Talk about bugspam...

[Anonymous Coward]

The fuck? How else are you supposed to get a gauge on how important the bug is to your user base? People like you who are overly hostile towards users giving honest feedback are exactly what's holding open source back. Why don't you run off and "find something productive to do" rather than whining in a slashdot comment...

Re:Talk about bugspam...

[authorwjf]

I am the author/developer who put out the call to everyone to chime in with "me too" roughly 72 hours ago. I know this isn't helpful in fixing the issue but it was necessary in getting someone to take notice of the issue in the first place. I've been fighting to get someone to fix this for six months. If 700 me-too's is what it takes to get Google to throw some resources at this bug then I'm happy to put up with the 'bugspam' as you call it.

Re:Talk about bugspam...

[arielCo]

Human nature - a silent click on a star doesn't look as persuasive as direct communication, plus it deprives the (l)user of self-expression. Plus, when the poor fellow sees that his bug has lingered on with "Medium" priority after a year and 800+ complains from unhappy campers complaining, he feels some extra "pressure" is in order.

Silly as it may seem, by the time a user starts googling an issue (no pun intended), he's already a bit tense and exasperated. Maybe a tweak in the tracker interface would help, or maybe the devs only look at posts with attachments.

Re:Talk about bugspam...

[Rich0]

Well, they provided this nice mechanism - starring the issue. Plus, after the 350th me-too in a one-day period do we really need a 351st?

In any case, I've fixed lots of open-source bugs, and I've been paid exactly zero to do it. I'd hardly say that my free contributions have been holding open-source back.

Now, admittedly Android has commercial sponsorship, but these people should really be complaining to their carriers, not spamming bugs...

Re:Talk about bugspam...

[Rich0]

So, based on the posts in the bug it sounds like Google has been actually working on this, but having problems tracking it down.

That being the case, perhaps you should have posted a reproducible scenario or something.

I was just amused to see that as an interested party trying to understand what was going on (and hey, who knows, maybe even spot something that can be patched), I had to wade through 750 me-toos to find the 10 posts that had actual content in them.

The many-eyeballs benefits of open source go away when nobody wants to look at a bug entry...

Re:Talk about bugspam...

[coolmadsi]

I would not feel sorry for anyone who got banned from posting nothing of value. An e-mail was sent around to my office recently that basically said "Any bug reports that do not have sufficient details and recreation steps will automatically be rejected". I had seen some of the bug reports that they were trying to avoid, they're not helpful at all and usually require sending an e-mail to whoever submitted the report asking what is wrong and what they did. Sitting around waiting for replies is a waste of time really, and you've got to hope that the submitter can actually remember what they did by the time a developer gets to it (it can take some time to get from submission to scheduled to be worked on).

Re:Talk about bugspam...

[coolmadsi]

If 700 me-too's is what it takes to get Google to throw some resources at this bug then I'm happy to put up with the 'bugspam' as you call it.

Even if the resources are going to spend most their time trawling through useless comments instead of actually trying to figure out what is going wrong?

Also, why is all this aimed at Google? I've not followed the Android development that much, but I thought it was developed by a consortium of 50 companies? Or am I thinking of something else?

Re:Talk about bugspam...

[Rich0]

Yup. However, I'm sure most of these posters don't know better.

I would place more criticism on news sites that encouraged their readers to go on a bug-staring rampage without any explanation about bug tracker etiquette.

Bottom line is that the spirit of open source is a cooperation between users and developers. If you want to scream at somebody for dropping the ball, call whoever sold you the phone.

Re:Talk about bugspam...

[Rich0]

So, the ways to get this escalated are:

Star the bug.

Have a FEW people post this is important and why. When you see that 75 people have already done this in the last 15 minutes, maybe resist the urge to add your voice.

Call whoever sold you the phone. Hint, that wasn't Google.

Re:Medium is appropriate...

[crymeph0]

Performance: is in regards to phone performance and responsiveness (raw speed), not user-related effectiveness.

I call troll, but I can't help feeding you. If a bug made the phone into a brick that did nothing but execute nop instructions at 1 Ghz when idle, and just flashed random lights when a button was pressed, your definition would not classify this a performance bug.

Re:Medium is appropriate...

[Motard]

Not so idiotic to many here. They'll just argue that their communications are private, and that an elected government's private communications (further classified as secret) should be public.

Security is unnecessary for the elected government of a superpower nation with a nuclear arsenal and complex diplomatic endeavours, but it's absolutely essential for making sure you don't have to have a conversation with your grandmother about your desire to get shitfaced.

Re:Definitely bug. One or several remains to be se

[drb226]

there are steps to reproduce in the bug report

False. From the linked bug report:

Interestingly, has never occurred on my other Nexus running the same FRF50 build.

Basically, he says he *can't* reproduce the bug on just any device. Only on one particular device.

Re:Medium is appropriate...

[c0mpliant]

It has since been updated to priority Critical

Fixing this will be a nightmare

[leenks]

Surely this adds to the case for Android device manufacturers should be working together on a standard Android distribution, rather than on their own fragmented and mangled versions.

They should accept they are just producing hardware, and that the Android customisations are irrelavent (much as it is with Windows laptops and vendor supplied crapware). Because they all produce customised versions of everything and stop supporting them as soon as the new hardware is released these bugs are going to exist in existing Android handsets for a long time, potentially forever.

Re:Fixing this will be a nightmare

[bobsszz]

They can probably release a market version of the messenger application so anyone can update it.

Another critical bug no one blogged about

[bobsszz]

This bug is pretty bad also. Someone should add the link to the original post. When you have 20mb of internal memory left or less, you can't receive any SMS anymore. Also the SMS message is lost forever. Seems there's a duplicate entry: Issue 11045: cannot receive SMS messages when internal memory is low http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=11045 Issue 4991: Can not receive SMS when internal memory is low. http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=4991

Re:Another critical bug no one blogged about

[KingAlanI]

On my (non-Android) phone, I see something kind of like this: there's plenty of space left on the memory (both internal phone memory and SD card), and yet it still insists I'm out of space. [However, the latest messages are sent to me again successfully when space is cleared.]

Re:Open.

[icebike]

It has ALREADY been fixed by the community.

None of the dozen or so SMS apps in the market exhibit this. Only the stock app.

Re:Medium is appropriate...

[icebike]

and we have to try to keep the signal-to-noise ratio good here on Slashdot.

Right. Now please refrain from lecturing. Thanks for your cooperation. EOT.

This is depressing

[cuby]

It's a phone and this folks can point your position everywhere in the face of the earth but are unable to properly send a bloody sms!?! (Nokia is doing it well for more then a decade). This is "I live in my BMW because I can't pay the rent" stuff.

Finally some attention to this bug

[cartman005]

I created an account just to comment on this article. I have experienced this bug as well and it can be incredible embarrassing. Thank god it is finally getting some attention so maybe they will finally fix it. There is also this one that happens to me constantly: http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=5669

Re:It happened to me.

[geogob]

It doesn't excuse anything with regards to this issue in the Android OS, but if you, as an engineer, use SMS to iron out critical details on project, you have even bigger issues.

SMS was never advertised as a reliable communication medium, nor was it ever recognized as such. Using it for official communications, especially communications that should probably be traceable and leave an history is really not that bright. Emails are so easy to use on mobiles now, they offer a much better alternative.

If you are using SMS for anything other than "I'll be 10 minutes late to the meeting, please start without me", you are doing something seriously wrong.

They used to be free

[new500]

When i had to switch in the UK from analog, there was no charge made on SMS.

I was truly shocked when, a few years later, texting took off.

It was like the X.25 channel on ISDN. There, known to a few, but of little use.

Oh, silly me, i bought a phone, to be, err, a phone.

Now, if you suddenly find a way to charge good money for something which is a byproduct waste in your system, why the heck not charge as much as you can?

All you're doing is taxing cowardice. Which is a plentiful thing. Don't tell me you never "hid" behind a text message for convenience sake?

As for Android messing with SMS addressing, is this not a GSM certification spec?

Re:They used to be free

[commodore64_love]

>>>When i had to switch in the UK from analog, there was no charge made on SMS.

Precisely.
SMS texting used to be free because it didn't cost the company anything.
Now it isn't.

Re:Bug or inaccurate tapping?

[segedunum]

It's definitely not a fat finger issue. Android's messaging app at first sight appears to be very useful because you can simply reply to a messge thread without having to create a new message and tediously add the contact. However, yes occasionally it does decide to message the wrong person which usually results in volley of swear words at it because it's so damn illogical.

Just watch what you write because you can't trust it. If you want to be sure then create a new messge and select the contact manually. I can't fathom what stupid piece of logic within code would cause this.

just recently switched to unlimited text

[OrangeTide]

Until last month I was paying 20 cents a text, which worked out to about $3.40 a month for me. less than the taxes on the line.

I have an unlimited plan now but that's because it was bundled with some other things I wanted. about half of my friends have per text charges, and if they cared about the charges they would switch plans.

Unlimited text being the standard is a recently phenomenon (last 3 or so years), and has not been something that has been around since the late 80s/early 90s as you suggest.

Re:just recently switched to unlimited text

[Gordonjcp]

I don't think I've paid for text messaging for about ten years. My current package gives something like ten thousand SMSes free, with subsequent ones charged at 1p each.

GNU vs. BSD

[necro351]

A lot of companies (i.e., Apple, Google, Oracle) use licensing that is "open source" in that the code can be used by anyone, however they are careful to always make sure that private modifications need not be published. Such companies avoid GNU like the plague, and only use it when forced (e.g., gcc). These companies then go further to make your stronger licensing ineffective by using DRM (e.g., Droid and TiVO) to make it even more unpleasant to hack their source base by depriving you of real control over the hardware. These guys use open source as a way to cheaply disseminate a platform they can advertise on, not as a movement or a service to the community.

With a license like that used in Google's user-land environment in Android, fixing patches only helps Verizon, Motorola, and Google, but the little guys won't see anything cool until Verizon and Google finds it unprofitable to maintain a separate fork any longer (which can be either short or long depending on the value). Even once said patches are published, good luck finding a cheap platform you can run it on that isn't locked down by your service provider. So there are huge disincentives for an unaffiliated hacker that go beyond mere access to the code. Rather than contributing to a movement, said hacker would just feel like a patsy that works for Google/Verizon for free.

This is an important point

[Motard]

Google responds to these claims with "you're holding it wrong."

I think what's happening here is that data meant for the 'bit bucket' is falling out through the antenna.

A tempest in a teapot

[rickb928]

I have NO knowledge of this ever happening to me, nor do I ever recall getting an SMS from some random person...

3600 reports out of millions of devices. Assuming on'y perhaps one in a thousand bother to report this, then you do get a large enough sample to be concerned about unless some of those 3600 are repeats.

More interesting to me is the sad state of the POP/IMAP Email client. It's been substantially dysfunctional since birth. Only with the Android 1.6 release did it even actually delete the trash locally. On my G1, with 1.6, it still couldn't retrieve mail without retrieving all the previously read and deleted mails again. It fails to make a connection to a perfectly good server on a regular basis, stalls during retrieval, and a myriad of lesser issues. The trash issue was first reported by me in January 2009, and has been assigned, deleted, re-reported, claimed as fixed, reported again, re-assigned, prioritized to no action, and then a new Android release woud come out and all the previous reports were flushed. I stopped reporting it with 1.5.

But the POP email client isn't a priority. After all, you need a Gmail account, so just use Gmail, ok?

I won't belabor the sad state of the Bluetooth Voice Dialer. It's pathetically inacurrate for me, so much so I had to delete it, not to mention grabby about answering the headset button presses in my pocket, and plain failing to run when I wanted it to. Pus.

This is one of the problems with Open Source; support and development at the whim of those doing it, not the same sense of urgency for some of the more obscure problems, the priority being determined by the developers. Mostly this just whets our appetite for the 'final' result, but sometimes, like when you're buying a phone dependent on it, well, it's annoying.

I still see this SMS issue as miniscule, but I might be wrong. Some of the other problems introduced by various phone makers' unique UI enhancements are a lot more interesting.

And yes, I do root my phone. I'm running 2.2.1 via Cyanogenmod 6.1.0 with the 2708 hack. It's a lot more stable than without the hack, and my G1 jus doesn't have enough RAM. It's served me well. I can hardly wait for a cool dual-core Tegra-based replacement. Then I'll try the POP mail client again... Betcha it still sucks.

Re:Medium is appropriate...

[Motard]

Security is unnecessary for the elected government of a superpower nation with a nuclear arsenal and complex diplomatic endeavours, but it's absolutely essential for making sure you don't have to have a conversation with your grandmother about your desire to get shitfaced.

Well, maybe if I could make it a little more concise.

You were really going for the signature quote, weren't you? :)

subject

[Legion303]

"Oh sorry boss you had to find out that I think you're an idiot, can I still keep my job, please please please?"

Actually, this is a good reminder that you should treat every single thing you send over any network as public speech.

SMS Reliability - ptui

[Wolfling1]

Our company transmits in the order of 20,000 SMS messages per day, on behalf of our customers. The reliability from the telecommunications companies is approximately 93%. Yes, you read that right. Forget about five-nines reliability. These guys don't even get two nines.

And when we challenged them about it, they said 'Read the contract buddy. We categorically do not guarantee to deliver ANY sms message ever, and we categorically do not agree to tell you which ones were delivered or not.'

I don't see that Google has anything to worry about here.

Does not occur with alternate SMS apps?

[w0mprat]

Quite a few Android users use alternate SMS apps from the Android Market, just about all of them are a better (ChompSMS, Handcent et al). I'm wondering does this only apply to the stock messaging App?

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Android not ready for primetime yet

[john_uy]

Android gets to have bugs here and there. One of the gripes that we have (me and my colleagues) is the calendar function. There is a problem with the synchronization of calendar between Android and Google Apps. The interpretation of Android for whole day entry and Google is different with the calendar entry going haywire to wrong date if you switch between a time entry and whole day. In addition, we get to have sync issues when changing times and dates of the calendar. It becomes "disconnected" where the Android calendar and Google calendar does not reflect the changes made to each other. However, when you delete the entry, it will be deleted on the other.

The solution is to use iPhone (one of my colleague has and does not experience any problems.) Google sucks with the own products rather third party integration. iOS It has better support with the synchronization and does not have any problems (indicating that it is an Android issue.) The synchronization is faster (instant update after saving the changes) instead of Android which requires some time to update (and not sure if it will really update.)

Given that Google has almost 20,000 employees as of end of 2009, what are all of them doing? Maybe their mantra of launching and keeping everything in beta actually materializes in the products that they deliver.

Re:Medium is appropriate...

[Envy Life]

It *only* took 1 year and a huge public outcry to do this? I actually see this all the time on my phone... while I've never sent to the wrong person, I will click on a thread and a few seconds later it will mysteriously switch to another thread. Really disturbing, and most likely a very simple fix.. somewhere in the bowls of thousands of lines of code.

Re:Medium is appropriate...

[beakerMeep]

Apparently Google agrees with you as well as it seems they changed the priority to Critical in the past few hours.

Re:Medium is appropriate...

[Kilrah_il]

Performance and security: I don't think these words mean what you think they mean.

Re:Medium is appropriate...

[Kilrah_il]

Just because they raised the priority of the bug does not mean they think its a security or performance issue, just that they finally understood that a misent SMS is a critical issue.
The parent is still correct that a performance issue is, roughly speaking, something that causes the device to act slower than it sould be, and security is (again, generaly speaking) something that exposes the phone to exploits.

Re:It happened to me.

[Pentium100]

SMS is reliable, well, at least to me all the time except a few hours around January 1st, 00:00 when everybody (including me) is DDoSing the cell network by sending "Happy New Year" messages to all of their friends. For the rest of the year SMS is very reliable (again, at least where I live, I do not know how it is in the US or some other country).

My phone can also use email, but email is worse than SMS, because I do not get instant notifications about the received message. I can set the phone to check the mailbox every so often, but it still is not instant like with SMS. I could use some app (gmail's app probably can do that) to always stay connected and notify me instantly, but that would drain the battery much faster than SMS. Combined with the fact that most of my friends do not have internet connection of their phones, do not have email set up for the phone or have phones that do not support email, SMS is better, even though it is more expensive.

If this was the iPhone

[bonch]

If the iPhone randomly sent text messages to the wrong people, the comments section here would be filled with a level of sarcastic vitriol the likes of which hasn't been seen since a Bill Hicks show. Gawker would call it a "debaclo," Engadget would label it as another major controversy, and Paul Thurrott would cash his monthly paycheck from Microsoft and write up another article about how Apple sucks and doesn't listen to people when there's a problem. Online petitions would be filled out by no-lifers with a cause, PC-using douchebags who list their computer specs in their forum signatures would mock Mac users for the thousandth time, and media outlets with nothing to write about would concoct a "growing outcry" where there is none.

However, this is about Android. The difference in tone when a bug or security flaw story is about a Google product is striking. There are even posters here defending the classification of this very serious bug as "Medium" importance. So, rest easy, Google! The tech press and the one-sided fanboys who read them have got your back.

Re:Medium is appropriate...

[bonch]

Yeah, but this is Android! From Google! So it's not as big a deal, you see.

However, the next time someone smothers their iPhone and sees the signal strength drop a bar, you can bet we'll be all over that massive controversy.

Yours truly,
The easily swayed masses

my next phone WAS going to be an android one

[Dr. Hellno]

you listening, google? fix this.

Re:nothing new here

[Z00L00K]

Microsoft is already on the list of sending messages to the wrong recipient - happened to me in Outlook.

Luckily for me it was harmless that time.

Re:It happened to me.

[rsborg]

My phone can also use email, but email is worse than SMS, because I do not get instant notifications about the received message.

If your phone supports ActiveSync, it will use SMS protocol for the notifier, so your email client doesn't need to poll frequently. One of the most useful MS technologies... it's supported on iPhone, WinMob and Android.

Possibly related

[negge]

I wonder if this bug is related to an issue with my Galaxy S where as I recieve an SMS the sender name shown in the notification area is sometimes a completely different person than the real sender. Scares the shit out of you sometimes until you remember it's just a bug.

Smartphone are often ruined by stupid users.

[threedevious]

That crying fanboy over at Engadget is just butthurt because people make fun of his iPhone and iPad. I haven't had this happen and I don't get random texts from people either. I text multiple people everyday. I have noticed that I've been lax with the To: field before, but again an ID 10 T error, something that commonly happens over at Engadget.

The real lesson here....

[RichiH]

...is that Google is not perfect either and that they need to work on their procedures.

That bug has been living a life of perfect happiness, surviving at medium priority for half a year. A few headline stories and 700 comments later, all of a sudden it's critical. While I have to agree with n...@google.com who asked people to stop posting "me too, lol" messages and starring the issue instead, it shows that a _lot_ of people think this is ridiculous, and it is. This bug survived one major release for $deity's sake.

Part of the problem certainly is that Google is amongst the fastest-moving companies on Earth while handset manufacturers used to be really slow (one release per line & year, tops(I am not counting the gazillions of almost-identical Nokia phones)). And telcos are even slower. _And_ both manufacturers and telcos are used to releasing once and then not looking back.

Google has started to address this with separate applications which they can push via Market. They are effectively bypassing the slower companies to push out more stuff faster.

Yet, the fact remains that Google is a giant faceless moloch. Unless you pay big bucks or are somewhat lucky, your problems and suggestions you might have just will not reach anyone relevant, ever.

PS: As an aside, I am happy about every major bug in Android and similar. The bug itself is annoying, sure. But it forces people to rethink software updates for the mobile computers that used to be phones. And that is a Very Good Thing.

Welcome to Google software

[AugstWest]

Bug priorities aren't determined by users, they're determined by whatever the developers care about.

Chrome intermittently just *won't* show some checkboxes, and the bug was reported a year ago. It's currently at 5 pages of complaints without a single word from the G.

It's caused some pretty serious issues for users, but noone seems to care. Yes, Chrome is still listed as "beta," but that will most likely still be the case 5 years from now as well. Paypal checkboxes not showing up can be a very bad thing. Sometimes it even occurs with GMail....

Re:It happened to me.

[cmdrbuzz]

No it doesn't. ActiveSync keeps a http(s) connection open to the server. It doesn't use SMS delivery. The old Exchange 2003 notification and the old Blackberry protocol did, not ActiveSync

Re:Not a bug

[mr_lizard13]

Ahh, if only the '-1 Troll' option was available only after passing a 'sense of humour' test.

Re:It happened to me.

[RogerWilco]

But that only works if your employer has an e-mail system that supports ActiveSync, and has it activated. Unless you have Exchange, this is not a given. And Exchange/Outlook isn't always the best choice for an employer for other reasons. For example at my work we use GroupWise, because Windows machines are less than 10% of our desktops, and there is no Outlook for OSX or Linux, while there is a GroupWise java client.

And I don't care what you paid

[OrangeTide]

I gave sufficient evidence to show that people still pay for texts, and even provide a reason why they bother. You not paying for a text in a decade doesn't disprove or prove anything, so what was the point? Comments like that belong on a facebook status update.

If you want to focus on the cost of a text msg rather than the final cost and overall features of a phone plan, be my guest oh great myopic one.

Re:And I don't care what you paid

[Gordonjcp]

My point is that almost no-one pays for text messages. You actually have to go out of your way to use an incredible amount of text messages, or track down the shittiest contract imaginable to find one where you have to pay for text messages. In a brief search of contracts to try to find out how much people *could* pay for text messaging, I couldn't even find one that didn't have free SMS. On pay-as-you-go, you often have to pay for SMSes, but more often than not you get *some* free ones.

So again, I'll ask you, where the hell are you finding a contract that you have to pay for SMS?

Re:And I don't care what you paid

[OrangeTide]

and you miss the point by a mile.

There are plenty of people who don't care about the text message rates because the use the service so little it doesn't matter much.

t-mobile - $60 unlimited talk but $0.20/text (unlimited text is $70)
sprint basic - $30 200m talk, $0.20/text + .03/KByte.
at&t - $40 450m talk, unlimited minutes are an extra $15. ...

there are lots of people that have plans where minutes are either an extra fee for "unlimited" or where they pay per message. usually the marketing advertisements show the versions of plans with unlimited minutes because that is more attractive from a marketing standpoint when offering a special plan.

Re:And I don't care what you paid

[Gordonjcp]

Those are some really poor deals. Looking at them, though, they're only available in the US, where it appears you're lucky to be able to use a mobile phone at all. Maybe the next time you're shopping for a mobile phone, you should take a printout of UK and EU phone tariffs, and demand they price-match ;-)

off topic eurocrap

[OrangeTide]

And you should demand that your local petrol station price matches US gas prices.

Most electronics are a bit cheaper in the US than EU and UK, a few things are more expensive oddly.

You should check out some of the reports on text message usage of adults in the US. It's pretty obvious that there are some real cultural differences between Europeans and Americans when it comes to mobile phone usage.

ps - soccer, lol.

Re:off topic eurocrap

[Gordonjcp]

And you should demand that your local petrol station price matches US gas prices.

Comparatively speaking, the prices are about the same. Yes, the number is bigger. Dollars and pounds aren't the same thing. In real terms, what would it cost you to fill your car to the brim? How far would that take you? What else could you buy with the same amount of money?

ps - soccer, lol.

I've never understood the attraction to it, myself. It's just as bad as "American Football", where some fat guys in padded suits waddle up and down a field slowly for a few minutes, then stop for a rest when they realise no-one can remember who had the ball last. After doing this for what seems like hours, they eventually give up and leave the pitch. How on earth can people watch that shit?

Re:off topic eurocrap

[OrangeTide]

Yes, the number is bigger. Dollars and pounds aren't the same thing.

wouldn't that make them appear cheaper when current rate is around 1.5 to 2 dollars to the pound?

US - $2.82
UK - $5.79
Netherlands - $6.48
France - $5.54
Ireland - $4.78
Spain - $4.55
Romania - $4.09
Brazil - $3.12 - the Americas are all this price

(numbers from Jan 2010 because that's all the data I had, numbers in US dollars per US gallon. current conversion factors also from Jan 2010)

Re:off topic eurocrap

[Tacvek]

How on earth can people watch that shit?

I would ask the same question about most sports (regardless of origin), although there are a few I can understand, although I still have no interest in myself.

I could also ask the same thing about most "reality" television that seems to be exceptionally popular in the US (where it is slowly replacing prime-time dramas, not really sure if this is happening overseas). the only "reality" programming that has a shot of being worthwhile (but still often falls short) is the stuff that predates the phrase "reality television", such as news, or game shows.

I find the growing percentage of television prime-time hours being consumed by "reality" programing quite distressing, as it means that the rare show I find worthwhile (which usually do very poorly in the ratings game) are all the more likely to be cancel to make room for yet another "American Idol" or "Survivor" clone.

I'm expecting a gradual emergence of indie television programs starting out through the existing film festival mechanism, and gradually building a new support mechanism tailed for the purpose.

Re:off topic eurocrap

[Gordonjcp]

I find the growing percentage of television prime-time hours being consumed by "reality" programing quite distressing, as it means that the rare show I find worthwhile (which usually do very poorly in the ratings game) are all the more likely to be cancel to make room for yet another "American Idol" or "Survivor" clone.

It's cheap, and it's easy to create a buzz around it. I bet you could get a semi-decent video camera and a Youtube account, and make your own "reality TV" programme by following the totally not scripted at all lives of some scrawny orange-skinned harpies and their self-obsessed dullard boyfriends. Slap ten minutes up each day, and you'll build up a following of people determined to see what happens next. Of course, it helps if you've got the budget to stick posters up everywhere and have it trailed in every ad break. Tell you what, add a reverse-billed SMS shortcode so that the mindless hordes can vote someone out, or vote that they all go and do something - "SEND A TEXT TO 81199 WITH 'PARK' IF YOU WANT THE HOUSEMATES TO HAVE A PICNIC IN THE PARK, OR 'CLUB' IF YOU WANT THEM TO GO TO A STRIP CLUB - AND DON'T FORGET TO LEAVE YOUR NAME FOR A CHANCE TO WIN 'SPRINGBURN NIGHTS' T-SHIRTS! text messages cost £1.50 each. If you are under 16 ask your parents before texting"

You'd make a fortune. Cut me in for some when you do, it was my idea after all.

I'm expecting a gradual emergence of indie television programs starting out through the existing film festival mechanism, and gradually building a new support mechanism tailed for the purpose.

I bet you could get a cheap semi-decent video cam... oh, been there. Well, Vimeo is probably better than Youtube. Turns out the public-access TV guys were right all along.

Re:off topic eurocrap

[Tacvek]

The problem with the online video system is that there are very few producers that do anything that really resembles actual television dramas. You get many short one-offs, and a bunch of "webisode"-length serials.

You also get a fair number of documentaries, but all in all very little quite like TV programming.
Part of that is because those sites don't provide much opportunity to make money. The occasional viral video will make a fair amount, but barely make enough to cover the wear and tear on the camera.

On the other hand, a movie that makes it to Sundance actually has a pretty good chance of recovering most expenses by way of sales.

Re:Bug or inaccurate tapping?

[Rosy At Random]

Same model phone here, and while I have never sent a message to the wrong person (that I know of) it often takes me to a random thread instead of the one I selected.

Re: Scottish economists

[Rhodri Mawr]

Here in the UK most of us are fed up to the back teeth with the nonsense spouted by so-called-expert Scottish Economists. Invisible hand? I don't see it, myself...

Re:SlashTroll

[SiChemist]

That's a pretty interesting observation.

I'm a bit of an android junkie who reads several android sites and forums and I've never heard of this problem. It seems that it's very rare and very difficult to reproduce.

I skimmed through a portion of the comments and many were of the form "ZOMG! I'm thinking of getting an Android phone but won't do it until this is fixed." Not bug reports at all.

Re:Medium is appropriate...

[Orestesx]

This is such crap. Performance/Security should be an objective classification of the nature of the problem. By your metric, virtually any bug could be classified as performance.

"This app displays 'PONIES' instead of my user name. That's a performance issue because I have to remove that text before typing in my username."

"This app crashes everytime on startup. That's a performance issue because I won't be able to get my information until the issue is fixed."

I say this as someone who works in the Performance group at a software company. I prefer the less ambiguous "response time." Which means, it works, but it's slow.

Re:Medium is appropriate...

[jrumney]

Mostly this is a beat up. There does appear to have been a bug that was promptly fixed, but the original submitter of the bug report is still having the problem with one of his two identical devices after the upgrade. Also a small handful of other genuine responders to the report may have the same problem.

Over at Google Code, Issue 9392 — SMS are intermittently sent to wrong and seemingly random contact — carries a priority of 'Medium,' even though it has 600+ comments and has been starred by 3,600+ people."

And yet it took 6 months to get to comment number 34:

Comment 34 by stephenlgo, Dec 20, 2010 I wonder why this "technical issue" is not well-known by the public? There should be a facebook page about this problem.

Re:SlashTroll

[jrumney]

See comment #34. Anything after that is just worthless "me too" responses from people who probably don't even own an Android phone and just have too much time on their hands over the holidays.

Re: Scottish economists

[tehcyder]

Invisible hand, my arse.

Ewww.

Re:Open.

[tehcyder]

But it wouldn't occur to 99% of users (including me) to use another SMS app when they've already got one built in.