You can imagine then my shock when I received this Tweet from Inisoft, the developers of Dice Player:
@NZtechfreak Google block our market account without any notice.
Whoa, what?!
Sure enough I dove straight into the Market and searching for Dice Player brings up only the free trial version of the app. There are already reviews on the free trial from other concerned users unable to install the paid version [Aside: I absolutely hate undeserved one-star reviews, don't give Dice Player one-star reviews for this, and to those who did - please stop rating apps in the Market, you make it a worse place for all of us you jackasses].
I clarified some more with Inisoft, and at this stage they have not been supplied any reason from Google (and won't be able to get any answers from El Goog until Monday, way to leave us all in the lurch good n proper Google).
Maybe I'm alone here, but this strikes me as terrible. Google is hurting a not only a good developer with a great product, but also the end user here. If they'd just given a reason then I'd feel more inclined to cut them a little slack, but they didn't manage even that small courtesy.
It's not good enough Google. Get your house in order.
Yongzh had the same problem. They didn't even send him a warning or anything. Granted, emulators are already a bit of a grey area, but it does suck to see "Rom Grabbers" in the market which ARE illegal, and see Yongzh's apps pulled.
ReplyDelete@Daniel: Similar thing there on one level, but very different scenario emulators Vs a video player application. Very disappointed by this. Will encourage Inisoft to try out SlideMe, which is where YongZH ended up.
ReplyDeleteOf course real hope is that this is just some silly error and Google reinstates them ASAP.
ReplyDeletePerhaps Google are investigating them for a breach and are waiting on further information before making an official comment? You have to admit that the app in question is not unique, and no other developers in this app space haven't been pulled, so why this particular developer? I'd cut Google some slack. It would be unfair to force them to make a comment based on assumptions if they haven't had time to complete a proper investigation.
ReplyDelete@Anon: I don't think Google needs to make a comment, but I do think they owe some explanation to the developer - even if it is just to say "we have information that you may have breached our terms and conditions, while we are making enquiries into this we have suspended your Market account". To pull them without even that much information is wrong, and not the way Google should be treating developers (don't forget that Google has done very well out of this app too).
ReplyDeleteYou say it's wrong for Google to make a comment without a proper investigation, which I agree with, but if it's not right for them to even make comment on it then surely it's not for them to act like this without explanation either is it?
21days later and still nothing...
ReplyDeleteYup, terrible from Google. Inisoft inform me that if they don't hear anything soon they will look at listing on an alternate Market like SlideMe.
ReplyDeleteInisoft is now operating on Google Play as Inisoft_Dev and Diceplayer has been revamped - I can't be the only one wanting to be certain that I can trust this developer? Why was his account terminated nine months ago? He's still able to gain access enough to chane the names to (old). I just want to be sure that the new app is safe.
ReplyDeleteI've been using the new app for a while with no problems. No idea why they had account issues but it may have been due to DTS licensing. They have now removed DTS decoding capabilities from the application.
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