Android Phones Play ?Chat-Roulette? With Your Text Messages
I have always been a big fan of Google Android phones. Sure the user interface may not be as polished as the iPhone. I admit the Exchange support might not be as tightly integrated as it is on the Blackberry. But, I?m a geek and I?m willing to put up with some annoyances as a trade-off for speed and flexibility and customization. And I?m not alone. Market researchers Canalys and NPD Group both recently published reports stating Android was running on > 40% of all smart phones in the United States. It would seem Android is destined for dominance.
Except somewhere along the way, Google seems to have forgotten first and foremost Android phones need to be phones. And that is why I?m seriously considering making the move to Blackberry or Windows Phone 7. For the last six months now I?ve been dealing with a huge flaw that makes my phone unusable for SMS texting. From what I?ve been able to tell using analytics provided by Google?s developer site, as many as 77% of Android phone users are at risk of having their text messages sent to a random contact.
That sounds unlikely right? I mean you pay upwards of $200 for a smart phone, and next to making phone calls, sending SMS text messages is probably the most used feature of the phone. But it?s true, and if you don?t believe me just type ?android SMS wrong contact? into Google?s search engine and see how many hits you get. It?s astounding. It?s happening. And Google seems to be ignoring it altogether.
The first time I responded to a text message from recipient A, and it went to recipient B, I just wrote it off to user error. I was in a hurry. I fat fingered it. Who knows, right? In time though I?ve begun to qualify and quantify this serious bug and disaster waiting to happen. The worst part is you don?t even know your text message went to the wrong person until you get a call or new message from someone in your contact list asking ?what was that last message all about??
On the sender?s phone, the text message actually shows as sent to the correct recipient, yet I?ve been able to get all three parties with their phones to sit down in one room and verify that in fact the intended recipient did not receive my text, and a random contact did. I will put up with a lot of minor issues for a cool phone, but having my privacy threatened is not one of them.
What irks me the most is that owners of these phones, me included, have no recourse. The bug is part of the core operating system, and has been since Android 2.1, (though it seems worse with 2.2). Phone model doesn?t matter. Using a third-party SMS application won?t help. Contact your phone carrier and you will be told to do a factory reset then call the phone manufacturer. Contact the manufacturer and you will be told to do a factory reset then get in touch with your carrier. This is a flaw with Google?s code so how is it they managed to slip out of the support loop altogether?
Ah, I think now we have reached the heart of the problem haven?t we? By making it an open source solution, Google isn?t really accountable. Or are they? I guess that depends on you and me. Google has a vested interest in fixing any flaws that are impacting their continued effort for world smart phone dominance. If those of us who have made this platform so successful for them draw a line in the sand perhaps someone at Google will take notice.
The issue at hand has been logged in the Google forums for some time now. Sadly, it?s rated as only having a priority of ?medium? and I?ve yet to see anyone from Google comment on the current state. I would urge any of you who have Android phones to log into the Google forum and star the issue. The link is here:
Issue 9392 - android - SMS are intermittently sent to wrong and seemingly random contact. - Project Hosting on Google Code. In the mean time, I?m going to continue evaluating some of the new Windows phone offerings. Just in case Google decides new UI bounce effects on widgets are more important than where my SMS text messages end up.
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