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< Esato Forum Index > Sony Ericsson / Sony > Symbian phones > VeriChat (Instant Messaging) Flip Closed and BOTs Bookmark topic

Haven't found a way yet to change the input language yet. Still looking though.

Different sounds for different buddies feature is already on our list, and will be released soon.

This week, we are going to release a maintenance type release which fixes several of the UI issues with bots, and small bug fixes like showing the right status in flip closed mode and such. Stay Tuned!

There have been some excellent feature requests here on this forum, and I will also start to investigate the feasibility of some of these.

PDAapps
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Posted: 2005-03-23 03:18:03
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I paid for the progie to learn that I just paid for a timed software. That was my stupid mistake I guess. But the software was in no way marketed that way on this thread nor the previous thread started by one of the PDAAPS' reps.

BEWARE FOLKS; this software is being sold as a service rather then what it really is APPLICATION/SOFTWARE. The service that we are using is IM yahoo, msn, aol, iqc, etc. through a software medium (ie VeriChat). VeriChat's primary functionality is no different then IM+, JMSN, 12Planet, Instant Symbian, MobileMessenger, or any other chat harnessing programs on the market. They all do the same thing; allow the user to use their "IM SERIVCE" through a software messing portal and chat application. PDAPPS apparently has found a subdolous way to sell their "software" as a time limited "service license" for $24 in order to justify them charging consumers for additional licensing at $19+ per yr after. So far this is the only IM service portal to have sold their software as a "service license". Why's that you think??? Even those desktop versions like one of the original IM service harnessing applications like "Trillian" wouldn't pull this stunt. All excuses aside you can see why I easily missed the part about my $24 only being good for 1 yr. It is quite unpractical to think it would have been sold that way so I missed it, plain and simple. I have been testing this software since it was first advertised on Esato weeks ago. I almost wanna start a thread to poll how many users thought that this software would cost them $24 for 12 months and $19 each additional year. It's amazing what this company has managed to get away with by selling a non-existent service for those free IM services. There is NO refund on this. So don't skip the fine print like my dumb arse just did. I know I sound bitter, but inspite of all that has been said I'm sure everyone could understand. I'm curious to know who has purchased it and who plans on purchasing it after reading this.

So do justify why this software can be classified and sold as a "SERVICE" rather then what it really is...a "SOFTWARE APPLICATION" portal for the various IM services.
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Posted: 2005-03-23 03:47:42
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I can live with that if they continue making it better and better. Normally you buying software just once but when you changing device you many times need to purchase same product again, for many ppl within a year. Yes some apps is possible to upgrade for free when go for new device but in overall Im pleased to pay yearly if they can maintan the progrees of developing VeriChat. I could continue with the free Agile/myBuddies but choosed this because was clearly the best. myBuddies just for Icq and if I was using Agile and a buddie using myBuddies, then myBuddies crashed every time. If no FC mode in VeriChat I would not go for it though. If you followed this thread from beginning you would knew that it was yearly payment.
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Posted: 2005-03-23 11:44:34
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Quote:
On 2005-03-23 11:44:34, janptr wrote:
I can live with that if they continue making it better and better. Normally you buying software just once but when you changing device you many times need to purchase same product again, for many ppl within a year. Yes some apps is possible to upgrade for free when go for new device but in overall Im pleased to pay yearly if they can maintan the progrees of developing VeriChat. I could continue with the free Agile/myBuddies but choosed this because was clearly the best. myBuddies just for Icq and if I was using Agile and a buddie using myBuddies, then myBuddies crashed every time. If no FC mode in VeriChat I would not go for it though. If you followed this thread from beginning you would knew that it was yearly payment.



So did you purchase it?
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Posted: 2005-03-23 13:16:21
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Sorry it was mentioned in the old thread http://www.esato.com/board/viewtopic.php?topic=83895&start=0 I was asking the reason why it needed a yearly payment and the answer was ok for me to purchase VeriChat.
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Posted: 2005-03-23 13:51:03
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Ok. Couldn't follow what u said in the old thread. However, it was certainly a feedback thread on technical inqueries. I didn't interpret it to be a marketing poll. Inspite of all that if you're content with their justification then good for you. It seems like u did it for the flip feature.
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Posted: 2005-03-23 19:23:00
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@Bigfeat: We do charge yearly, but we don't have any intention of hiding that fact. We have it mentioned quite clearly when you go through the purchase process of our service.
http://www.pdaapps.com/verichat_symbian/verichat_symbian.html

Also, we work much harder on our products, release new versions very often, and don't charge for updates. We have a whole server component of our VeriChat service which lets you do so many things that might not be possible in a naive implementation. There is an ongoing cost attached to all these. We also provide other value added services like BOTs which are not present in any other competing products. The VeriChat server is updated very often to make sure we can provide a good uptime for these services.

PDAapps
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Posted: 2005-03-23 19:42:37
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Lets say like this, I got back the interest of chatting because of the FC mode. Was quite boring to always need a pen to type. Now it makes my trip by car more fun, easy to send away a smiley or a Pre-defined msg to some nice buddie;-)
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Posted: 2005-03-23 21:11:32
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Quote:
On 2005-03-23 19:42:37, pdaapps wrote:
@Bigfeat: We do charge yearly, but we don't have any intention of hiding that fact. We have it mentioned quite clearly when you go through the purchase process of our service.
http://www.pdaapps.com/verichat_symbian/verichat_symbian.html

Also, we work much harder on our products, release new versions very often, and don't charge for updates. We have a whole server component of our VeriChat service which lets you do so many things that might not be possible in a naive implementation. There is an ongoing cost attached to all these. We also provide other value added services like BOTs which are not present in any other competing products. The VeriChat server is updated very often to make sure we can provide a good uptime for these services.

PDAapps


With that said, the "service" rendered does not cover any gprs cost to utilize the software. The GRPS connection provided by the carrier is a service. The IM medium like Yahoo, MSN, AOL, ICQ is a service. The application that is used to channel the aforementioned services is still simply software. The cost of utilizing a server simply to push software updates in no way enhances those services beyond their primary purpose of functionality. If a desktop chat application client were to be used as an analogy in this case I'm not sure how that is much different from what PDAAPPS is doing for handheld devices. You still have an OS platform to do your dev work on.

I do agree those extra features are value added perks to your software, but I'm still unclear of why its classified as a "fee-based service". It does appear as if the justification for this classification is to cover the companies cost. But how is that fair to the consumer? The only service I can see here is: technical support and software updates. How does that set it apart from any apps of its kind? The only justifiable asset that is been rendered to the consumer is a 'good' not a 'service'. The Consumer Protection Agency outlines what is defined as a good and what is defined as a service. I understand the company needs to make money, but those added costs that this company takes to push out product improvements comes with the territory m8. Tell me what other company of this type does not spend money on R&D, marketing and customer service / tech support. I would more understand the "upgrades" as being chargeable, but the reason why the majority of companies do have free upgrades is because they don't want to walk the fine line of consumer protection laws.

Moreover, this software is advertised as having free upgrades as long as it's within the same OS. But how is it different from what IM+, JMSN, Trillian, etc.. are doing? Their license applies to a single device (in this case IMEI #) as it does with PDAAPPS. PDAAPPS says the license holder is NOT permitted to share/distribute the registration info to any other device. Either way, one is not able to install it on multiple devices even if its within the same OS class. As to the upgrades, all the competitors have free upgrades. If the next Pxxx series device was to be released tomorrow and I purchased it, according to PDAAPPS policy I would still be required to purchase another license because of the registration info distribution restrictions.

@Jantr

if believing that the super cool feature of "FC mode" as being a justifiable feature to classify this software as a service, I personally think you're way off. The Core Dev software sold to developers everywhere to establish/build software on the UIQ Symbian platform does give developers the flexiblity of making their software FC compatible. Unrealplayer was the first 3rd party sofware that I could remember a few years ago when I bought my P800 that allowed users to view and manipulate the player functions in FC mode. There was no magic in that, it was well within the capabilities of the device to be programmed to do that. So although I agree that Verichat offers some nice features to its applications I'm not sure if you can argue why those features can truly be justified as having to pay for them every year. If PDAAPPS decides to not develop any updates within the next year; guess what? You'll still have to pay for the software year after year. I missed the disclaimer out of my own ignorance. In spending time testing this software for weeks I have never read much into the company and its policy on it's website until now. Before that all of the information that I needed was coming from the threads posted on this forum. And my primary focus was on the functionality of the software and not the cost of the software. It truly seemed that the PDAAPPS rep was more interested in getting feedback on the software for R&D purposes then trying to convince Esato members to purchase it.
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Posted: 2005-03-24 01:06:34
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Version 1.16b is available on our website, and over the air when you login to the VeriChat service next.

PDAapps
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Posted: 2005-03-24 03:22:13
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