The PalmGear -> PocketGear merger has caused pain and agony for many developers(I have heard many horror stories, and also had my fair share of bad experiences). However, the story sent in by developer Dan Nabutovsky truly puts morphine icing on the valium cake developers need to stay calm – read on:

Ok, here is my story. Hope this helps me. :)

At the end of 2007, palmgear created new site, Pocketgear.com. My program has not been moved to the new site. After a careful search, I found the following sentence in their site:

“While we have eliminated much of the outdated and freeware listings, actively selling current titles have been migrated to the new PocketGear.”
(http://www.pocketgear.com/en_US/html/developersGuide.jsp)

My application (Agushka Backgammon) was neither free($9.95) nor outdated (I upgraded it at the end of 2007). Its last sale on palmgear.com was on October 10, 2007. It is also remarkable that they removed freeware programs, while at the same time they claim to “provide our customers with the premiere place to go for all of their smartphone content.” As we all know, customers just hate freeware.

Nobody bothered to inform me about my application not being accepted at the new site or about a new site at all. Pocketgear.com simply told that “There is no customer with the e-mail address you specified.” All my e-mail requests about the issue were ignored. I should myself discover what happened and how to get into my developer address (throw developers.palmgear.com)

For some obscure reason, sales of my application stopped on palmgear (but continued on handango). This is in spite the fact that my application can be found on palmgear or pocketgear as easily as before.

I don’t see why should I keep an application which, according to pocketgear.com, does not bring any revenue. Therefore, I disabled it, but to no avail: it is still visible on palmgear. My emails about the issue were ignored.

Finally, I decided that I am fed up with palmgear. I increased the price from $9.95 to $19.95 and wrote them to remove my application because I have copyright on it. They, guess what, ignored my emails, AND they did not increase the price. Here I am, totally pissed at them, and don’t know how to get rid of this site.

Even though I personally can not complain about them ignoring my emails(of course, being the webmaster of a Palm Os web site does help a bit); many of the things Dan reports have also been confirmed to me by other (big) developers immediately after the switch.

Anyways, I have now forwarded the whole story to my contact PalmGear and expect a reply soon(will be published here). As always, MobiHand remains a cheap and unproblematic alternative; HandAngo remains expensive as always(but also is said to work well).

Do you have any horror stories to share? If yes, please send them to Tamog@gmx.at and I’ll see what we can achieve together!

Related posts:

  1. PalmGear – the can of worms is open
  2. PalmGear is back!
  3. PocketGear fun – app aproved, not live
  4. PalmGear enables HTTP Post; kills developer fulfillment
  5. Delay-o-rama – or – PalmGear takes 10 days to certify an app