Google Calendar Ends SMS Notifications

LuserOnFire writes: Google has sent out an email this morning that says in part: "Starting on June 27th, 2015, SMS notifications from Google Calendar will no longer be sent. SMS notifications launched before smartphones were available. Now, in a world with smartphones and notifications, you can get richer, more reliable experience on your mobile device, even offline." You can find the announcement on Google's support pages as well. "Richer" may be accurate, but I'm not sure that "more reliable" describes web-based notifications; that may be why the announcement linked does not apply for Google's "Work, Education and Government customers."

Comments

annoying downgrade, ingores major usage patterns

[xeno]

I find it really ironic that Google, a company so used to being the new hotness upstart company, is so willfully ignoring usage patterns of a significant minority comprising "the youth" and people on the wrong side of the internet divide, and much of the third world, and anyone without a data plan outside of wifi range.

What these people have in common is they use sms or some form of text-like DM instead of email, so email notifications sit in an unread inbox and are effectively useless. Syncing calendars is fine as long as each individual maintains their own calendar, but sms is one of the nice ways to notify individual attendees without some major calendar confab.

For example, my kid's french tutor uses Google calendar for scheduling, and if you load the calendar it shows *every* person scheduled on that calendar, which is great for finding available spots, but it's not something you would leave visible. Turn it off/non-visible, and you lose web notifications. However, at present each person gets an sms notification for their appointment, even if they turn the calendar off. Sooo.... Google expects every person on a shared calendar to leave that calendar active at all times in order to receive web or email notifications, which are likely ignored if not disabled?

It's a tone-deaf move. Personally, I use sms to ensure my kids get the notification no matter what, and this downgrade will result in all sorts of ignored events and missed appointments. One workaround, at least for t-mobile, is to email the notification to 800YOURNUM@tmomail.net ....tho there was some talk of the service being taken down to avoid abuse.

Re:annoying downgrade, ingores major usage pattern

[Todd Knarr]

Most of the kids these days have smartphones of some sort, either Android or iPhone. If they use Google Calendar at all, they almost certainly also have a calendar app that would handle the notification. So why would they even need SMS? I'd even bet they don't use SMS for talking to their friends, they probably use one or another messaging or social-media app.

And app-based notifications have one advantage: since the app has the calendar data cached locally, it can generate notifications even when the phone can't get a signal or network connection.

Waaaaaa! Call me a WAMBULANCE!

[Frosty Piss]

Waaaaaa! Call me a WAMBULANCE!

Google is shuttering a FREE service that has mostly been eclipsed by better technology!

Listen, Luddites, Google has no obligation to provide you with squat, unless you are paying them.

Move on.