Until now.

This is a story of how when Telstra fails at fulfilling an order, they fail spectacularly hard.

It’s a story on how an omission of a single word on a package caused a delivery to spiral out of control from a simple 3 days, into a terrible, horrifying bureaucratic mess that took more than 45 days to resolve and nearly cost me $4000.

This is what happened when I tried to order an iPhone 6s Plus from Telstra.

The Decision

I normally skip the ‘s’ versions of the iPhone. I never owned a 4S, or a 5s.

But in this case, with the allure of 2GB of memory, a far superior camera, and a pressure based interaction mode, I thought I could easily justify the features the 6s offered over the 6.

After doing some math, I worked out that if I got one on a plan with Telstra, and rolled in my iPad’s data SIM card at the same time, I could tweak the monthly billing to only be slightly more than what I was already paying. On top of that, with Telstra’s ‘New Phone Smell’ deal, I could easily upgrade to an iPhone 7 down the line and not have to worry about selling the 6s off.

Boom. Done. Let’s get one.

The Order

Thinking it’d be easier than going into a store and doing it, I opted to order my iPhone directly from the Telstra website. Simple enough; just enter in your current Telstra number, input your license number for verification and click the ‘I accept’ checkbox.

Unfortunately, I then discovered I couldn’t use my PO box to accept the delivery. I have to use an address where I can physically sign for the package. No worries; since I work out of a co-working space during the daytime, I’ll just put down that down:

Tim Oliver
<Coworking Space Name>
<Street Number + Name>
Perth, WA, 6000

Boom. Submit. Done. Easy.

A few minutes later, I received this confirmation email, telling me my iPhone would be on the way soon.

I double-checked the address just in case I accidentally misspelled it. Nope! It was correct.

The ‘Delivery’

A week later, I received the magic news.

Oh boy oh boy! That was much quicker than I thought! Anyway I put the consignment number into my iPhone (Parcel is a GREAT app for tracking these sorts of deliveries by the way!) and kept an eye on it. Turns out  Telstra was using a delivery service named Star Track to deliver their handsets ordered online, and they all originate out of Sydney.

On the following Thursday, Parcel told me the phone had arrived in Perth and was heading towards my coworking space.

Too easy. I rocked up bright and early, more than eager to receive my phone.

At around 11am, a man wearing a Star Track jacket popped in, and said he had an iPhone for a ‘Robert’. The staff member on duty told him ‘no’, and he promptly left. I pondered whether I should stop the man and ask him if had an order for a ‘Tim’ as well, but I figured that since that since that there were still many iPhones being delivered that week, mine must be on a different truck.

Then… on its own, Parcel updated:

Hang on. What? So, that was the guy I just saw? And he couldn’t locate me? What the hell just happened?

The First Call to Star Track

To their credit, Star Track support is very fast. When I received the delivery error message, I called their support line immediately, and I got through their automated phone system and to an actual assistant within a minute.

Star Track: Hi! What’s the problem?

Me: Hi! I just got a strange delivery error from your system stating I need to ‘check the address’.

Star Track: Okay sir! What’s the consignment number?

Me: It’s <Consignment Number>

Star Track: Okay sir… it looks like that package’s delivery address is <street name/number>, Perth 6000. Apparently it’s a big office building, so the driver didn’t know where you were inside.

Me: Wait. It’s supposed to say <Coworking space name> on that address too.

Star Track: Oh. Well it doesn’t.

Me: Oh, well that’s fine then. I think I actually just saw the guy in here before. Just tell him to go back to the same place he just came from and I’ll go find him.

Star Track: Sorry sir. I can’t do that.

Me: … why?

Star Track: Your package wouldn’t happen to be a phone handset from Telstra, would it?

Me: … uh-oh.

Star Track: Normally we could change the address for you after the package is in transit to include <Coworking space name>, but as it originated from Telstra, they’ve instigated a policy where the address cannot be changed once they sent it out.

Me: But the address is incorrect…

Star Track: Sorry sir. That’s something you’re going to have to resolve with Telstra.

Me: I see. Thanks for your time.

Well now. This was a bit unfortunate. But I remained optimistic that this would be resolved shortly. I was sure one quick phone call to Telstra would get all of this sorted.

The First Phone Call to Telstra

Alright… first thing’s first. I couldn’t figure out which number to call to have this sort of thing sorted. The Telstra site is huge and vast, and I didn’t feel like committing the time to wade through it all in search of a single phone number. Thankfully, the Telstra Twitter account was actually quite good at giving support:

Too easy. Now I’ve got a number to call. This should be resolved within the hour.

… nope.

Turns out I wasn’t the only one who needed support that day. I spent nearly 50 minutes on hold, listening to the same elevator music looping for the whole time, with no indication that I was even getting close to an actual call assistant. (If purgatory exists, I’m pretty sure that’s what it would be like. XD)

Just before an hour hit, I decided to give in, and hang up. I was hungry, (and also needed to use the restroom!) so I figured I would just pop out to lunch, and try calling again in a little while, hopefully once the support queue had cooled down.

The Second Call to Telstra

… didn’t actually take place! Because when I checked my phone 30 minutes later, THIS had happened!

Oh dear. I guessed that since Telstra ‘assumed’ that I had just received my new iPhone, they decided to kill the SIM card in my current phone!

So now, even if I wanted to try calling them again, I couldn’t. What a pickle!

Online Chat with Telstra

Figuring I’ll just go past the Telstra store home on the way home, I randomly tweeted that I could’t make calls anymore and expected to leave it at that.

That being said, the Telstra Twitter was very diligent in picking up my tweet (Even though I didn’t even ‘@’ them) and offered an alternative support channel:

While attempting to call Telstra had been a complete write-off of time, I figured I’d give chat a quick try. To my surprise, the online Telstra chat was amazingly fast, and I was put in touch with an assistant straight away:

Jun: Hi there! My name is Jun. How can I help you?

Me: Hi Jun! I’m having some trouble with an order. It got lost in the mail and now my current phone has stopped working.

Jun: Oh no! What’s the order number?

Me: It’s <Order Number>.

Jun: No problem. I’ve fixed your order. You should be enjoying your new iPhone tomorrow.

Me: Excellent! Thank you so much! Oh! And what can I do about my SIM card.

Jun: Sadly once a SIM card is disabled, it cannot be re-enabled. You’ll need to go to a Telstra Store and get a new one.

Me: Alright. That’s no problem!

The End of Day 1

On the way home that evening, I stopped into a Telstra Store, and received a new SIM card. The process only took about 3 minutes, and my phone was back to normal. I went home thinking nothing more of it. My phone would arrive tomorrow morning, and it’s only delayed by a day. No biggie…

The Very Next Day…

The next day was a Friday. Bright eyed and bushy-tailed, I headed into the coworking office a lot earlier than usual to ensure I didn’t miss the delivery. Work proceeds as normal, but I periodically glance at my watch to see my shipping status has updated. By 3pm, the shipping status hasn’t changed at all since yesterday. I start to get nervous. By 3:30pm, I decide to give Star Track a call to see what’s going on:

Star Track: Hi! What’s the problem?

Me: Hi there! I missed a delivery from you yesterday on behalf of Telstra. Telstra’s told me they’ve corrected the mailing issue, so I was expecting it today.

Star Track: No problems! What’s the order number?

Me: It’s <Order Number>.

Star Track: Oh dear. That delivery was marked as ‘undeliverable’.

Me: Uh. Undelivered?

Star Track: No, as in the address was invalid and so the package cannot be delivered. It’s being returned to the sender.

Me: But… the sender is in Sydney.

Star Track: Correct.

Me: Could you please… not send it back to Sydney? I can just drive to the depot and pick it up.

Star Track: Sorry sir. It’s too late. It’s already in transit back to Sydney.

It was at this point when I felt a HUGE sinking feeling. I wasn’t going to be seeing my iPhone for ‘a while’.

Me: … ah…… so… what do I do now?

Star Track: Sorry sir. From now on, you’ll have to talk to Telstra.

After being stuck in the Telstra call waiting queue for over an hour before, and not knowing what to do at this point, I fired off another tweet in the hopes that the Telstra Twitter could help.

I decided to try doing the Telstra Live Chat again. Thankfully I got on just as quickly before and was able to explain to the chat agent what had just happened with Star Track. They decided to give me a call to sort this out.

Unfortunately, apparently it was worse than I thought. The agent on the phone told me that once a phone has been returned (Whether by my own doing, or by Star Track), the order is automatically cancelled. They told me that ONCE the phone had returned to Sydney, I would have to re-order ANOTHER one. Back to square one.

I was (fair to say) understandably pretty disappointed at that.

The First Visit to the Telstra Store

Since my phone had now officially been cancelled, I decided it might be worth going over to the Telstra Store in Perth and picking up one of their’s instead. I was about to head out of the country for a week on the following Monday, and I really wanted my new phone before then.

Nope. No 6s Plus units matching my order in stock. (at @Telstra Store in Perth, WA) https://t.co/Dvbcw423qd

— Tim Oliver (@TimOliverAU) October 2, 2015

Nope. While they had a few 16GB models of the iPhone 6s Plus, they did’t have a 128GB Space Gray model like the one I originally ordered.

So, after that, I went home for the weekend and planned my trip to Italy for pragma conference. While disappointed I’d miss the phone for this trip, I figured waiting for a week would be good in that the phone would arrive at Telstra in Sydney, and they’d follow up with me when I got back.

While in Italy

A day after arriving in Italy (Absolutely BEAUTIFUL place! :D), I found out I needed to do some banking that required an SMS to be sent to my Australian number. I hadn’t used my Australian SIM in several days since then, so I popped it in to receive the banking confirmation code. I didn’t get just my confirmation code:

Oh jeez. Where do I begin? pic.twitter.com/ks3VGBFNzI

— Tim Oliver (@TimOliverAU) October 9, 2015

Wait. What? Telstra was sending me an SMS to see how I was going with my new phone? Really? Did the ‘order not completed’ status not reach the SMS robot? I replied NO, hoping that’ll defer anymore surveys until AFTER my phone problem had been resolved.

Wow. And Telstra just keeps digging… ಠ_ಠ pic.twitter.com/L5ahRDPFtm

— Tim Oliver (@TimOliverAU) October 9, 2015

Really? REALLY?? So now Telstra wanted to know how much of an awesome job they did at NOT DELIVERING MY PHONE. Wow, what a lovely way to treat customers.

Anyway. No matter. I was in Italy, and having a truly fantastic time at the conference. This phone stuff can wait until I’m back in Australia.

Sure enough, on the evening before I was heading back to Perth, I receive a message from my co-working space:

Woohoo! I wasn’t expecting anything else, so that must be the phone! I guess Telstra just re-sent it to Spacecubed and changed to security so they could sign for it. Too easy!

Very eager, I boarded my plane back to Perth with the goal to go and pick up my ‘package’ the next day.

Back in Perth

Turns out. It wasn’t a new phone.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME. TELSTRA SENT ME AN EMPTY ENVELOP IN ORDER TO RETURN MY NON-EXISTENT IPHONE. I just…. I just can’t even…

A photo posted by Tim Oliver (@timoliver) on Oct 14, 2015 at 9:27pm PDT

WHAAAAAAT. What in the blue hell is going on? Telstra sent me an envelope to return the phone that THEY HADN’T EVEN SENT ME YET? What in the actual hell kind of logic is this?!

I was so confused. What state is my account in? Do I have a contract? Do I NOT have a contract? Can I still make phone calls? CAN I STILL SEND TWEETS?

Whelp. There’s nothing left for it. I had to go to the Telstra store and settle this out in person. This had started going from slightly disappointing to downright baffling and infuriating.

The Second Visit to the Telstra Store

I marched into the Telstra Store, and asked one of the staff to check out my account. I sat down with the staff member and he pulled up my account to view its state. Here’s how the exchange went:

Staff Member: Alright. So when the phone was returned to Sydney, that counted as you wanting to cancel your contract. Which is why the envelope got sent out automatically.

Me: Ohh okay. That makes sense.

Staff Member: Also, because you cancelled your contract a week after it started, you’ve been billed for the entire price of the phone and a cancellation fee. You have an invoice for over $2000 in there.

Me: … wh….. WH…

Staff Member: I’m fixing that one now!

It was like an incredibly bad Rube-Goldberg machine. A failed delivery meant a cancelled phone meant a cancelled contract meant a VERY HEFTY cancellation fee. It was absolutely astounding and terrifying to witness.

To his credit, the Telstra staff member was very good. He managed to reverse the $2000 charge (Yay!) and then told me he’d cleaned out my order. He said when the Telstra Store gets another batch of iPhone stock, he’ll put one aside for me and I can come pick it up. I’d since changed my mind about the colour. I met a very awesome designer in Italy who convinced me to try out the gold one this time, so I asked the Telstra staff member to put me down for one of those.

I was a bit shaken that I just narrowly avoided a $2000 charge (The exact thing I was trying to avoid by not buying an iPhone outright), but at least it would be over ‘soon’.

The Mystery Call

A few days later, I got a mystery call from Telstra asking about my ‘phone in Sydney’. Somewhat confused, I told the caller that I had just cleared it up at a Telstra store and to not touch anything in fear of breaking the whole system further.

Oh my giddy goat. I just got a phone call from @Telstra trying to convince me to change my plan since I ‘cancelled’ my iPhone order. #fb

— Tim Oliver (@TimOliverAU) October 17, 2015

I wasn’t actually sure what that was in reference to, but it became clear a bit later.

The Third Visit to the Telstra Store

Fast forward a few days, I thought I’d go back to the Telstra Store and ask to see if they had any idea when the next batch of iPhones would arrive:

“Next batch will most likely be after Christmas.” Whelp. -_- (at @Telstra Store in Perth, WA) https://t.co/ROletAzQg7

— Tim Oliver (@TimOliverAU) October 22, 2015

Wow… so they were guessing the phones were now a whole 2 months out now. Blimey.

Paying For my Non-Phone

Later on, in the same day, I received the bill for the first month of my new contract. Swell.

In hindsight, I probably should have held off paying it, but I did it just to ensure things couldn’t possibly get worse at this point.

On their recommendation, I submitted a ticket with their ‘Leave it with us’ contact page, as well as left a complaint on their complaint page. Both pages promised follow-up in 48 hours, so I was hoping this could be solved soon.

In the meantime, as it was now the end of October, I headed off to Melbourne to enjoy both GCAP and PAX AUS.

While in Melbourne

Over the course of the week in Melbourne, I kept checking my email expecting to hear from Telstra in regards to my support and complaint tickets, but absolutely nothing came.

On my final day of being in Melbourne, I received another call from Telstra out of the blue:

Me: Uh, hello?

Telstra Guy: Hi! I’m from Telstra!

Me: Oh, is this about my complaint?

Telstra Guy: Uhh, no I don’t know about that. I’m here to confirm delivering your phone.

Me: Huh? What phone?

Telstra Guy: Your iPhone 6s.

Me: I’m not even sure what phone you’re referring to at this point. But sure okay then.

Telstra Guy: Alright! I’ll send it out tomorrow.

Me: Hold on a minute. Can you please tell me the address you’ll send it.

Telstra Guy: (Reads out the original INCORRECT address)

Me: *LONG SLOW, FRUSTRATED, INFURIATED SIGH* No. That address is incorrect. If you try to send a phone to that address, ‘bad things’ happen. The correct address is (Correct Address).

Telstra Guy: Okay sir. Thank you. *Hangs up*

I was really confused. The Telstra staff member had told me he’d cancelled my original order, so I didn’t know which phone he was referring to. Oh well. I shrugged that random call off and thought nothing more of it.

Right after that, literally as I was on the plane from Melbourne back to Perth, I received an email from the Telstra store letting me know that they had received more stock:

Sweet! I let him know that I might have already had another Telstra phone shipped. But I made an appointment anyway to come in for the following day.

Back in Perth… again

Sure enough… the following day:

Wahh. Got an email saying they were back in stock. Went and looked. Already gone. ;_; (at @Telstra Store) https://t.co/B7ns0Nu9cg

— Tim Oliver (@TimOliverAU) November 5, 2015

Really….. Really?? That quickly? Also, I was under the impression they were holding it…?

I talked to the manager of the store this time, and she said that the staff member I was talking to didn’t have ‘putting away’ authority.

In any case, as I hadn’t heard back from my complaint tickets, the Telstra Store didn’t hold my phone, and I didn’t receive any notice from Star Track that the phantom original one had shipped, I was done. I filed a Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman complaint:

Annnd, done. Filed a report with the ombudsman on Telstra’s absolutely horrific handling of my iPhone 6s delivery.

— Tim Oliver (@TimOliverAU) November 5, 2015

And that was it. All I could do was wait.

The Delivery…?!?!

The following week, somehow under the exact same consignment number, I got an alert that Telstra was trying to send me another phone:

Oh boy, here we go again! Telstra’s going to try and mail me another iPhone. My hopes are not high it’ll succeed, but I’ll remain cautiously optimistic. ^_^;;;

A photo posted by Tim Oliver (@timoliver) on Nov 8, 2015 at 7:49pm PST

I’m sure you could imagine how absolutely skeptical I was at this point. But to my actual shock and amazement a few days later:

Hooray! @Telstra finally managed to deliver my iPhone! And it only took 40 days and like 10 hours of interacting with their support staff. ^_^’

A photo posted by Tim Oliver (@timoliver) on Nov 9, 2015 at 7:49pm PST

It arrived! Holy crap! It finally arrived! I couldn’t believe it. Only 38 days late. But still!

But hang on a minute. This is the phone that Telstra guy at the Store told me he’d cancelled. How did this even happen?

In any case, at that point, I didn’t really care. Yes, it’s quite obvious that Telstra Perth and Telstra Sydney don’t talk to each other, but I got my original phone in the end.

But the story doesn’t end there. There was still my ombudsman complaint to deal with. After all, the amount of time I had to spend on getting this resolved was sheer farcical.

The ‘Ombudsman’

Well… to cut a long story short. When I was actually contacted by the Telstra folks in charge of ombudsman complaints, here’s how it went down:

Complaints Guy: So I see you didn’t get your phone for the first month. So I’m willing to reverse the charges for your handset repayment for just the first month. Is that suitable?

Me: … that’s it?

Complaints Guy: Yep!

Me: Hang on. After the sheer amount of time you’ve made me waste having to deal with multiple levels of screw-ups inside of Telstra? What would have happened in the reverse if I hadn’t paid my contract for a month?

Complaints Guy: Well obviously you’d pay a late fee, but we’d waive that if it was reasonable. The ombudsman can’t force us to compensate you for the time you’ve spent on this. Only for the services we failed to provide. Are you happy?

Me: No, I’m not happy. That’s such a weak response.

Complaints Guy: Well if you’re not happy, we can escalate it to my supervisor, but then there’s no guarantee that you’ll even get your handset repayment refunded. Is that what you want?

Me: Fine. I’ve had enough of this already. Whatever. Yeah just give me the repayment.

So the crux of the matter is that the ombudsman can’t force any compensation out of Telstra simply for the time spent/wasted on dealing with them. And they’re acutely aware of this. As far as they were concerned, even though they nearly billed me $2000 unjustly and delayed my phone for nearly a month and a half, the fact that I received my phone in the end absolved them of all of that. They were obviously very used to making sure to scrape by on the bare minimum when it came to ombudsman complaints.

In any case, I thought that at THAT point, it might finally be over (albeit, not a great outcome), but then THIS happened the following month:

Billed Again!

REALLY @TELSTRA? REALLY? I THOUGHT THIS HAD BEEN RESOLVED BY THIS POINT! ಠ_ಠ

A photo posted by Tim Oliver (@timoliver) on Dec 10, 2015 at 3:09am PST

They tried to bill me for the price of the phone. A SECOND TIME.

I couldn’t believe it.

So, back to the same complaints person as before I went to. I explained to them the problem and then asked them to reply to me via email when it was resolved.

This was the final email conversation I had with them.

The End

And that’s the end. I’ve lost all of my energy to pursue it by this point, and I probably should just cancel my contract with Telstra. I’m considering doing so when the next iPhone is announced.

In any case, a lot of people have told me they’ve never had a problem with Telstra. And until this little incident, I was one of those people too. Let this story serve as a warning to anyone dealing with Telstra that this is what can potentially happen with them.

Finally, to make sure there’s some value to this whole ordeal, here are some lessons I learned when dealing with Telstra. I hope you never need to use them, but they’re good to know.

1. Don’t order phones from Telstra online if you can help it. The security rules Telstra forces on phone deliveries are incredibly stringent, which is why this whole thing happened. Pick the devices up from the stores instead.
2. If you DO have to order online to a business address, use the most simple address possible. Ask yourself ‘If the business name on this address is omitted, will they still be able to find me?’.
3. Don’t bother with the Telstra support phone line. They’ll make you wait in a queue for HOURS.
4. The Telstra Twitter account is by far the best way to get support from them, followed by the Live Chat.
5. Don’t bother with sending a message to Telstra Support, or Telstra complaints; they’ll never be acted upon. The instant things start looking bad, file a complaint with the TIO. This was the only complaint Telstra ended up responding to, probably because they have to, by law.
6. Don’t spend any more time on this than you need. The TIO states they cannot force Telstra to compensate you on terms of time wasted, so Telstra will weasel out of it as best as they can.
7. Towards then end, after I found out that the complaint handling is done via phone, with the guy talking very quickly, and the sound quality being very bad, if you can, I recommend pushing as much communication as you can through email.
8. If appropriate, switch to Optus. You’ll probably live longer. XD

And that’s the story of how a simple address mistake turned into several months of frustration, fraudulent bills, miscommunication, and unfulfilled promises.

Boy oh boy. I can’t wait for the iPhone 7. XD

Pokédex for iOS is dead. Long live Pokédex for iOS.

What was it exactly?

Pokédex for iOS was a Universal iOS app designed to serve as a comprehensive companion guide to gamers playing the main Pokémon series on Nintendo handheld devices. It provided all of the major stats of each Pokémon ingame (moves, evolutions, abilities, etc), but its major selling point was that every single Pokémon had a highly detailed, real-time rendered 3D model that would play little emote animations on cue.

It was developed by Creatures Inc, presumably out of Tokyo, and had a base price of $2USD to buy. By default, only the Pokémon species from the latest game series, Black/White were included, and getting the Pokémon from each previous generation was a separate in-app purchase of $6USD, making the fully unlocked app, $26.

Back in 2012, after meeting 2 of the producers from the Pokémon Company at GDC, I had been emailing them every few weeks about the prospects of officially licensing iPokédex. Each time, they would reply saying they were a bit too busy at the moment to discuss it, but to try again in a few weeks. A week before Pokédex for iOS was revealed, they said to me ‘We should be free in a week. Try again then. ;)’, which in retrospective should have been my first tip-off that this thing was coming. XD

I could write a whole blog post on what I thought of the design or the amount of information in it, but suffice it to say, it was very visually confusing to look at, and eschewed nearly every single iOS UI control in favour of a completely ‘custom’ experience resulting in the interactions, feeling quite weird as a result. Also, it was REALLY obvious that it was originally built in Japanese, and then switched over to English at the end (Words being resized to fit into small boxes etc).

The app was last updated at the start of 2013, before Pokémon X and Y, and before iOS 7. As a result, it got progressively more broken as more versions of iOS and more iOS devices came out and progressively more out-of-date when X and Y, and later ORAS came out. Given how much effort it would require to bring the app up-to-date, it’s not surprising that they decided to kill it instead.

What happens now?

The app itself has been pulled from the App Store, but if you delete it off your device, you can still re-download it from your ‘Purchases’ list in the App Store app.

What’s more troubling is the In-App Purchase content. If you had purchased any of the $6 content packs, they are now officially gone for good. If you re-download the app, and try and access their download page, this is all you get now:

If you re-install the app, there is literally no way to restore any of the in-app content that you may have paid for. If you paid for all 4 packs, then you’re now officially $24USD out of pocket.

This is an incredibly disappointing move by Pokémon and it displays incredibly bad faith towards paying customers who invested in the app.

Can I back it up if it’s already on my device?

Officially, Apple’s developer policy is that in-app purchase content must explicitly be set to not be backed up. This makes sense in the fact that iCloud backup space is limited (so it should be limited to user-created content only), and in-app purchase content can (normally) be easily re-downloaded when the user taps the ‘Restore’ button.

If the app was implemented in the officially required way, then no. If you reset your device, or upgrade to a new device, the Pokédex in-app content WILL NOT carry over as well.

What should they have done instead?

When iOS 6 hit, Apple made it possible that in-app purchasable content of this nature could be hosted on their own servers next to the app. This saves developers and companies a lot of time and resources since they don’t need to worry about setting up their own content distribution hardware.

For some reason (Possibly because it was already built before iOS 6 was announced), the Pokédex app doesn’t do this and instead relied on their own server and software.

Ideally, they should have simply removed the app from purchase, but still left the in-app purchase system running. And if they had originally gone with hosting their content on Apple’s servers, they could have simply left it running alone indefinitely, at no cost to themselves.

In any case, in this day and age, simply pulling content that users have already paid for without providing any alternatives, or compensation is incredibly poor form.

Can I get a refund?

If you bought the in-app purchase content within 90 days, you can get Apple to automatically refund you for that content. iMore has put up a brilliant blog post on how to do that.

If not, you’re probably out of luck. Sorry.

Conclusion

All in all, this entire app experience was a pretty disappointing display by The Pokémon Company. So much so that they’ve now decided to quietly sweep it under the rug, and simply wear any bad faith they created between themselves and any users who may have bought it.

I’m personally quite upset about it since these are the sorts of actions that make consumers’ faith in paying for digital goods waver, which can have an impact on a lot of other developers. This sadly, is the cold hard reality of buying digital goods, and it’s why I’m so opposed to DRM-protected content.

In any case, the Pokédex app space on iOS is once again clear and I’m sure TPCI isn’t going to try and do another one on their own any time soon again. I wonder what opportunities this may have opened…

Last month, Amazon bought comiXology, arguably the biggest commercial comics service provider on the iPhone and the iPad. When this happened, more than a few people came and said to me ‘Woaaaah, look at that, Tim! Amazon bought one of your competitors! How does that make you feel?? :D’. I’m still not sure if they were trolling or not. They probably were. But in any case, I’ve given it a bit of thought, and here’s what I have to say.

I’ve always considered the classes of comic ‘buying’ apps like comiXology, and the comic ‘reading’ ones like iComics to be on two completely opposite sides of a coin. For apps like comiXology, their driving force is the actual discovery and selling of comics to users. For reader apps like iComics, the goal is to try and provide the nicest reading experience as possible, leaving actual comic discovery up to the user’s own discretion.

Comic apps like comiXology are walled gardens. You can only buy comics through their store, and you can only read them inside theit own proprietary app. It’s not possible to get the comics out of it yourself, nor is it possible to load your own comics onto it and read them. I personally loathe these kinds of locked down restrictions in a mobile app sense as it pretty much throws you completely at the mercy of the company. If they were to suddenly go bankrupt and disappear, then all your paid content would end up going with it. No ability to backup; no ability to locally restore.

Reader apps like iComics are supposed to be an alternative to the walled gardens of apps like comiXology. Their goal is to allow complete freedom of choice in what comics the app may use. With more comic artists opting to sell their comics as DRM-free downloads (Did anyone see the recent comic book Humble Bundle?? :D), not to mention the sheer volume of comics freely available under public domain, it’s pretty safe to say that this is a very viable alternative to these walled garden apps (ie, that DOESN’T resort to piracy), and helps to fill the niches that they could not possibly cater to.

Maybe, some day down the track, I would love to add an ‘optional’ DRM-free comic store built straight into iComics, something that would bridge the app across both sides of the coin. It would also be great to help add extra comic discoverability to the app, and would allow users to jump straight in immediately after they’ve got the app. We’ll have to see.

In any case, to sum all that up, no, Amazon did not buy one of my competitors! XD

Most people who know me have probably noticed that I am very particular with transporting all of my gadgets in cases. This is mainly because I like to try and keep all of my gadgets in the best possible condition, and also because I can bundle accessories (like charging cables) with them much more easily.

So when I bought a limited edition Pokémon X/Y 3DSXL earlier this year, I immediately set out to find a nice case for it.

The problem with that though…. is there aren’t very many cases at all for the 3DS XL out there right now. I did a few trips to multiple game shops in my area looking for cases, but all I was able to find were really cheap vinyl ones that no person over the age of 10 would probably want to be caught carrying.

So resolving myself to the fact I’d have to order one online, I went about searching around on Google. Almost instantly, I found this post on Kotaku about a really high quality case: The Nintendo 3DSXL CitySlicker.

After reading a few more reviews for it, I decided to go ahead and order one. After a few days, it arrived.

Wow! What a lovely case the CitySlicker is. The photos and the videos of it online don’t do it justice. It is a lovely piece of craftsmanship. The top flap is genuine leather, which feels really nice to the touch, and the rest is a ‘ballistic’ nylon that feels like a really heavy duty material that’ll stop pretty much anything.

The inside consists of a very soft, micro-fibre lined pocket for the 3DS unit itself (Fluffy. OH SO FLUFFY), and also features 3 leather pockets that will easily fit any DS or 3DS cartridges. The bottom of these pockets also have slits cut in them, so getting the cartridges out of them is incredibly easy.

The back is probably the kicker that sold it for me. On the back, there is a zipped-up pocket that is made out of what seems to feel like a really stretchy sort of cotton. I’ve only got my charging cable in here, but the pocket is so stretchy, I would have no doubt I could fit a proper charging brick as well as an extra cartridge case to boot.

So all in all, after getting my CitySlicker, I now have a very professional looking case that will not only keep my 3DS XL in perfect condition, it’ll also keep all the game cartridges and charging cables together with it.

I have no reservations in recommending the CitySlicker to any of my buddies if they asked me for a good 3DS case. This is hands-down, the classiest case for the 3DS XL. By far. In addition, I was also very impressed at the customer service from WaterField as well.

The only downside to this case… is the price. At $49, I originally baulked when I saw that, and decided to keep checking out other cases before eventually coming back top it. It was only after reading several other blogs promoting this case (as well as the lack of anything else coming REMOTELY close to it) that I decided to take the plunge, and write it off as an iComics expense. XD

But that being said, now that it’s arrived, I can safely say that the 3DS XL CitySlicker is worth every penny. It is definitely one hell of a case, and I’m expecting to be using it for a VERY long time after this post. Thanks a lot WaterField!