mark/space: aka "failure"
as a sort-of hippy / wanna-be software developer, i believe very strongly in free (or open source) applications for my computer. one thing i like so much about macs is the community, and that there are so many great apps that not only cost nothing, but also have millions of people with nothing better to do than to scrounge forums fixing your problems.
when iPhones first came out, the text messages (SMS) were limited to 1000 messages before your iPhone said it was "full" and some messages needed to be erased. when i first learned this, i went online and looked for an app that would back up my messages. note that this is very important to me; after having tons of stored messages for quite a while, it amazes me that i once lived without SMS backups.
i found two: syphone and mark/space's missing sync.
syphone is free. that's right. free. and it's written by some really good people, and great software developers.
missing sync is written by a company who has written software for ages for the blackberry (gah.) and generally is only run on windows or windows mobile. when the iPhone came out, they figured they could make a buck and sell some apps for the iPhone. this one costs a whopping $40.
i used syphone for a good long while, until i realized that it does not support other languages. being in china, it is very important to me that it reads chinese (rather than the garbage it thinks it's reading). i wrote the guys, and they said it may be a while until they wrote a multi-lingual version (they have real jobs). i searched and searched and found that only one app reads chinese: mark/space's missing sync.
i paid the $40. i figured that app would do everything i needed and more. and, as any paid app should, i figured it would have no problems. and if there were problems, they would provide the support i need.
a few months later, after using both apps (just in case), i upgraded to the newest iPhone software (2.0). a few weeks later, i went to check my SMS logs and noticed that the last update was the day i upgraded. i looked on some forums and found nothing. this is the problem with paid apps. i'll pay what i think an app is worth, but it still is worse than a free one, because they limit the forums to registered users (so google doesn't know it).
so after a while, i filed a ticket with this company, mark/space. it's been about two months. every day, i got an email something like "are you sure it's not working?.
two months!
i just got an email today that said "sorry. we're out of ideas. we'll give you your money back."
but what about my five months of text messages i've been counting on you to back up?! what about those?!
anyway, i'm very angry. i don't care about the $40. i care more that i finally got software that costs a lot of money, and it failed.
the moral of this story is: don't buy a mark/space application. and if you can, try and find freeware to satisfy your needs. it's most likely enough, and the community is far better. and the more important part: if you like the free software you download, give the developer some money anyway! those guys live off donations! help them keep writing decent software that doesn't mysteriously fail!
comments:
update: i figured out how to read the SMS database myself. i hope to write a simple web app to convert this into text soon, in case you're interested. however, i have other projects on my plate right now...
THE Lowly Peon | December 19 @ 10:59pm