seriously, Google Calendar Team?

[beaq]

This is your rationale??? D:

Important Announcement about SMS notifications in Google Calendar

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

Comments

[marzipan_pig]

Well and SMS means they all stay in one place on my (smart)phone and I can scroll through them. Appearing on my screen doesn't work that way.

How hard would it have been for them to continue this service for the people who liked it better and/or needed it?

[eub]

IMO Google would do better to give some context about how they make tradeoffs generally. Because the user has no way to guess whether the decision here is "we forgot about dumbphones because none of us carry one" or (all this is completely made up and any resemblance to reality is accidental) "1) operational maintenance of this thing takes about 1/K of a developer on our N-person team 2) it sends NNN messages per day, falling at XX% per year, compared to NNNN total calendar notifications, growing at YY% per year. 3) our deal with CARRIER is ending, and they won't budge on wanting ZZ% more per SMS in any new deal 4) we know this won't work for everybody, but here's a recipe to get email notifications to SMS through other gateway services."

Not meaning this as justification for this decision because I have zero idea about this decision. Just mumbling about the general pattern, in cases where in fact a real answer could have been given to the "why couldn't they just..." question.

[beaq]

While I do understand that a) google does't owe me or any other person not in the target demographic (which I tend to assume is "the most people with the least expensive needs that are in line with our overall business strategy") free services tailored to our personal quirks and b) sometimes the "real" answer isn't going to satisfy anyone, the marketing answers are so often buh-WHA?

In a world where "in a world where…" is a warning for "this is going to be ridiculous…."

[en_ki]

I can't comment on how it was when I worked there, but from the outside, it sure seems like old-school Calendar (i.e., on the web, using email and SMS, as opposed to "mobile", which is smartphones) is not getting any love, in the sense of headcount.

FWIW, email notifications can become SMS notifications pretty easily via your carrier's email->SMS gateway.

[pielology]

As a gift for my phone's 3rd birthday, Google Calendar abandoned support for the version of Android that T-Mobile decided I should be stuck with forever (how dare I not buy a new smartphone immediately upon paying off the old one). So I have some grotty old glitchy substitute that only manages to sync properly every 3rd Tuesday.

Bah, humbug.

[zzbottom]

Any chance you could get around this by sending email notifications to your gmail account and setting up a filter to automatically forward the email to your SMS account?

[beaq]

Oh I'm sure. I even have a smart phone ... well, for as long as we can afford to pay for data. The justification is just obnoxious.

[hitchhiker]

annoying :(