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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."
"Mobile notifications" both never work for me and deliver exactly the same information. Furthermore, my smartphone is a far frailer device that I do not feel comfortable taking half way around the world with me, where's a Nokia 3310 is a very durable and reliable phone (I speak from experience on this matter). Trendy for Google to cripple their services I suppose...
"Set a man a fire, he'll be warm for the rest of the night. Set a man afire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life."
What if I choose/can't afford to own a simpler 'dumb' phone?
Then you use a UMS gateway.
Smartphone based notifications are not web based. The idea is that your device runs a calendar app and syncs with Google Calendar. You then get notifications regardless if you are online or outside a coverage area, hence more reliable than notifications which only work via sms.
If you can't afford it, you don't count to google since you don't have what google wants.
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.
I think not...(*poof*)
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.
Why would they scrape messages they create?
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
So, basically the non-profitable ones they can't sell ads to?
Because, let's be honest here, Google makes the new hotness to sell ads. That it is useful "new hotness" is just the way they lure you in.
Google isn't providing a public service. Google is padding their ad revenue. And all those "free" services exist for two reason: analytics and ads.
Beyond that, you can bet your ass google doesn't give a crap about you. Not even a little. And they never will.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
I really admire their marketing genius. I really do. They started out with the inclusion of the phrase, "Don't be evil." That phrase, from their inception, was nothing more than a marketing ploy, a gimmick, and so many folks (including hopeful people from the FOSS community, I mean even the hard edge freedom fighters from OS communities) tried so hard to love and promote Google.
The cold, hard, reality is that the not being evil bit was (and is) a market strategy that had a massive effect. Coupled with their propensity to keep everything in the perpetual state of beta-class they cut off services frequent enough so that people notice and get hurt by it. They track and market that info. They market to you based on that information in the form of ads (if you have them enabled) and there are still many who see no wrong in this.
I, personally, use GMail and YouTube. I sacrifice my privacy to make use of their services though I have the tracking disabled as much as I can and I do not see their ads. I recommend others do the same.
Are they less evil than other companies? Nope. They are more evil than some. It is in the business they do, by default, and they can not (or will not) avoid being evil. In fact, being evil is so ingrained you could say that it is their business model and that they would have not succeeded or gone bankrupt without it.
I am surprised that they do not put their own ads on their scraped/cached content and serve those up as the default links. No, really, I am surprised that they have not tried that. I, too, tried to support them at the start. I tried to believe that they would do their best to avoid being evil as much as possible. Then they got big... The rest is, shall we say, history.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
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.
No one here's demanding the feature, they're pointing out why it's a stupid move. Google may fully have the right to remove any features it wants, but doing a favor for someone usually goes a long way. If I see you struggling with your groceries, I may not be under any obligation to help - but you would still consider it polite for me to assist you, yes?
"Set a man a fire, he'll be warm for the rest of the night. Set a man afire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life."
1) Someone will always comment on their continued use and the superiority of an essentially obsolete Nokia handset, whether it is an older feature phone or an N900.
2) A pissing match will take place between otherwise zealous technology advocates as to how little they pay for mobile service, often coupled with how little value they find in mobile data or contemporary smartphones.
I agree. SMS has worked when my Data is not working