However for those who have called on the FTC to help eliminate the other phone scourge - political robocalls - the new rules will not help. Calls from political campaigns are considered protected speech the FTC said. Ultimately consumers may get some help from state legislatures as many are regulating or looking to pass laws for more control over automated or robocall computer-generated phone-calling campaigns. One group, the National Political Do Not Contact Registry is campaigning to outlaw political robocalling altogether.
Since you mentioned it, I'm not sure what this development means for the future of my GV application. You can read more about my thoughts on the matter in my blog post
For those slashdotters who are GV users--what are your thoughts on the matter? Is the official app sufficiently crippled that I should continue? Should I aim for a peaceful coexistence?
I personally use the X.Y.Z and increment each under the following conditions:
X++: New backwards-incompatible feature. For example, a new database schema would increment X.
Y++: New feature or feature set. For example: Adding a new widget.
Z++: Fixing bugs.
It works pretty well for me.
Why not just use a single version number that gets incremented by one every time there is a code change?
That's what your version control revision is for. Some of us would like to be able to tell at a glance whether having 2.3.4 might cause problems when transferring data to a 3.4.5 installation. You try doing that with between version 36978 and 87498.
I didn't find the GV android app to be all that usable. The extra overhead ended up making me miss a lot of calls that I wouldn't otherwise have. Another problem was that dialing out either involved using the GV application which dials your Google Voice number and places the call via their system or making calls from your real number. The former put a 10 - 15 second overhead on making a call and the latter tends to confuse people because they are receiving a call from a different number than the one they (were told to) call.
If you haven't tried the latest version, I recommend you do so; it makes the dialing process much more seamless. If you still have problems with, don't hesitate to shoot me an email: gv {at} evancharlton {dot} com (that goes for anyone else that has questions or suggestions).
I can sum up the reason that this will never happen in two words:
... fair and simple...
evan@evan-desktop:~$ echo "fair and simple" | wc -w
3
(null cookie; hope that's ok)
