GV and Donut

I have received several emails about GV crashing on the new Donut (Android 1.6) update. This is just a quick reminder that I will no longer be updating GV. If someone wants to send me a patch to fix the crashing, please do so. You can find the source code and license here.

Once again, I highly recommend everyone transition to the official Google Voice application.

Comments

I love your app Evan. I think it really made a huge splash for the google voice community. I understand that you wish to no longer support the product but I would definitely pay for this app - I'm sure others would as well! I hope you'll reconsider.

Best,
Adriano

Posted by Adriano on Sunday, October 4th at 7:29 PM

Hey Evan,

I was poking around in various forums and couldn't find any information on why GV was abandoned. I'm sure there's a quite a demand of people looking to have GV be compatible with Donut and would be happy to support your efforts through a paid app. Can you give a little more insight on your decision?

Thanks.

-S

Posted by Stefan on Thursday, October 22nd at 6:22 AM

Stefan,

I explained my decision a little bit in "Out with the old; in with the new", but I guess I didn't do a good enough job :-)

It basically boils down to a matter of priorities--I have too many other projects which I'd rather focus my time on than spend my time solving a problem which has already been solved. It was not an easy decision to make, but the official Google Voice application has improved enough that I feel the benefits do not outweigh the sacrifices I'd have to make.

I understand that this is not ideal for everyone, but nothing ever is. As mentioned, it's still remaining here on my site, the source is still available, and I will still publish any patches anyone wants to send me--I just won't be devoting time to active development.

I hope this clears things up a little bit; don't hesitate to ask if you have any more questions.

Posted by Evan Charlton on Thursday, October 22nd at 1:11 PM

What the official Google Voice application doesn't give you, as opposed to your GV application, is starting a call purely over WIFI, without using the carrier's phone network. Your application allows one to initiate a call using a data connection even when their SIM card is not in their phone.

I experimented a while with the official Google Voice application, and reached this conclusion after a number of trials. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

I understand that you have no time to continue updating GV, but you were also justifying your decision with GV not giving additional features over the official app, whereas this feature is immensely important to people who are traveling outside the USA, and/or, in general, don't have the ability to add their cell phone number to Google Voice, in order to authorize it to initiate callback with Google Voice.

Thanks,
Iordan

Posted by Iordan Iordanov on Sunday, October 25th at 9:21 PM

Yeah... what that guy said. Did you get a cease and desist from the googods? Tmobile?

Posted by Anonymous asshole on Thursday, October 29th at 12:52 AM

> Yeah... what that guy said. Did you get a cease and desist from the googods? Tmobile?

I absolutely, positively, did *not* get a cease and desist from anyone :-)

As mentioned, I'm more than willing to review/merge any patches anyone wants to make. The source is right here: http://evancharlton.com/projects/gv/source/

Posted by Evan Charlton on Thursday, October 29th at 4:42 PM

Evan,

Just a quick note... I tracked down the source of the force closes in Donut. It seems on (at least) the calls to mark messages as read, the httpclient is throwing an IllegalStateException (message is "adapter is detached"), which is not handled.

Handling that exception type seems to be effective, but I'm not sure why this new exception is occurring in Donut (I don't see anything in the 1.6 changelog about an update to any of the apache HttpClient related packages).

In any case, I have it running to where it doesn't force close as a result of the operation and the app (so far) seems to be behaving properly. If it continues to work, I'll send you the SVN patch.

Posted by Mark Guppy on Saturday, October 31st at 4:54 PM

Hey Mark,

Any update on if your work around is still functional? I cannot get calls to go through with GV. If you have a patch that works, it would be great if Evan could merge it.

Thanks!
kockroach

Posted by kockroach on Tuesday, November 17th at 11:35 PM

GV isn't working anymore on Donut. Maybe you can dedicate a few minutes of your time to update it and charge $1 for each download? It'll be worth it for everyone except the mobile carriers.

Posted by Hydtech on Wednesday, November 18th at 10:59 AM

I have a G1 phone that I use as a wifi phone with google voice. The callback feature of your Google Voice application is great, I wish the official google voice app had it.

For me, on the latest Cyanogen build, the app force closes often, but the call still gets initiated, sometimes.

Thanks for this great app!

Posted by stanelie on Wednesday, November 18th at 10:01 PM

Hi Even,

First, great job on GV. The call back feature is really missing in the official version. I came back to yours. However there are few force closed that could be fixed in order to have the best experience.
I usually have a 'force close' when I click a sms or messages while the list is still loading ...
I also have the same when changing tabs sometimes.

I am interested in participating in the project, I will download your source and start playing with it tonight.

Great Job.

Nick

Posted by Koxon on Thursday, December 17th at 4:16 PM
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