Rogers customer service called me last night to "follow up" on my new phone purchase and see if I need any help/have any questions about "getting started" with my new android phone.
I told the girl that the phone is fine, I know how to use it, but that I was very upset that I didn't have access yet to paid apps in the marketplace. She replied that I did indeed have access to _free_ apps. I told her "Yes, I know, I want access to PAID apps."
At that point she told me that I would need to contact HTC as it is a manufacturer issue if i can't access paid apps. I kindly told her that was not true. I said "If the phone itself (hardware) is not able to do something, then yes, it is a manufacturer issue, however in this case the _paid_ apps are being blocked from ALL Canadian subscribers. This has nothing to do with HTC, this is between Google and Rogers."
I informed her that Google themselves are telling people in the marketplace forums that _carriers_ can ask Google to block or allow things, and that Google is recommending users bug Rogers for access.
Then she tried to tell me that it was like the iPhone apps store and that there would likely be copyright issues for a while until they were hammered out. I told her again that she was incorrect, and that it had nothing to do with copyright. I explained that there are "lite" versions and "pro" versions of the same apps by the same authors who are not in Canada, and that I can download a "lite" (free) version, but not the Pro version. I also pointed out that I wasn't talking about music or movies, but about applications.
She seemed surprised when I told her other countries like the US and UK had access to paid apps, and repeated to her that it was about _ROGERS_ not allowing access to paid apps.
She was very confused and said that all she knew (had in front of her on her script) was that it was an issue with HTC. She said she would need to talk to her manager. I was on hold for about 6 minutes, and when she came back she informed me that, according to her manager, paid apps whould slowly start appearing in the store and that they are "working on it".
So, in otherwords, one line of BS after another.
You'd think that a company as large as Rogers launching a new Smart phone as big as Google Android, would have picked a few people in one of the departments and said "Hey, you guys, you're the Android team now. Lean everything about it, and here's all the info we have already."
Lame.
