Withdrawing iOS Apps
June 10th, 2011 by dave
We recently decided to deemphasize iOS and withdraw our Easy WiFi apps from the App Store. Sadly, the iOS platform has become less and less capable of supporting our product and we felt that the functionality had become so marginalized that it frustrated users. It was doing more harm than good to keep them available.
This is somewhat ironic given that iOS was the first mobile platform we supported. For a while, Easy WiFi was a top app in the App Store, making it to number 4 in popularity. We felt like rock stars for a while! This was during the days when AT&T needed you to jump through hoops to get connected at Starbucks and users quickly discovered we were a one-click solution to that problem. Soon after, iOS 3.x rolled out and not only made the platform hostile to Easy WiFi (and similar apps from our peers) but AT&T locations gained built-in authentication (via WISPr, for those of you who care).
This wasn’t an easy decision for us. Apple is very relevant and we certainly feel we have huge value to add. Their current solution for hotspots – other than the single carrier network – is truly horrible and so, well, un-Apple! Perhaps they hired some people who designed Windows Vista’s UAC? My guess is that most iOS users are just so sick of clearing the “auto login” popup that they simply switch WiFi off and stick to cellular, adding further to the carrier data congestion woes.
So, our apologies to those of you out there with iOS, especially the loyal enthusiasts that have helped us with Easy WiFi over the past few years. We hope to see you again, perhaps on iOS or maybe Android…which is powerful enough to support us fully 
July 14th, 2011 at 6:08 pm
Hi,
I am impressed and dissapointed with how bitter, lame, dejected, and feeling sorry for yourself you are.
Company = fail.
September 12th, 2011 at 5:44 pm
“Apple is very relevant…” is quite an understatement.
October 14th, 2011 at 7:46 pm
Yuor easywifi.com site still has instructions to try searching the App Store, launching iTunes, which offers a $2.99 app to purchase called “Easy Wi-Fi for Trustive”. Reports are that one the app is loaded, there is no connectivity and no support, except for this press release about withdrawn IOS apps.
Ditto for the Android app, which isn’t in the market, but can be found on your site with Google for sideloading.
Please put an explanation right up front on your website. Add sticky posts to the top of your forums on the topic.
If Easy Wifi is being abandoned, please try to go out with some grace.
October 30th, 2011 at 12:53 am
Surely if Skype Wi-Fi works on iOS, Devicescape can too?
November 9th, 2011 at 3:58 pm
@Jon Prall: Not really “bitter, lame, dejected and feeling sorry” for ourselves at all. We have determined that with the current APIs available from Apple we cannot provide the user experience that we would like to provide for this application. For a while we were able to make it work, but as our network grew to incorporate literally millions of access points around the world, there was no easy way to make that work for iOS users who still need to manually select the network they want to use at least once.
Hopefully, one day, Apple will provide the WiFi APIs that we’ve been asking for (and filing the rdar requests for), and at that point we’ll be able to return to the iOS platform and provide the same, or better, user experience that our Android (and now Blackberry) users have.
November 9th, 2011 at 4:01 pm
@Henk Kleynhans: The issue is that the user needs to select the WiFi network manually, at least once. That works when you have a small number of SSIDs, or you have a user who is motivated to make the connection for another reason (e.g. to use Skype). Devicescape’s network is too diverse now to make it work well when users have to connect manually, and remember to launch an app to authenticate each time the phone connects. Unless that can be automated, the experience becomes frustrating (we know, we’ve all experienced it here).
November 9th, 2011 at 4:01 pm
@pinch: I’ve passed that on to the web team – thanks for pointing it out.
December 23rd, 2011 at 11:06 pm
So you post this on June 2011 but don’t change your packaging or website for choosien tthe Eye-Fi product so those of us wanting to make an informed decision – were mislead to believe to be IOS was still avaialble. I bough the Pro disk and just hope it does the bare mim. I’m wanting – uplaoding photoes straiting to flicr and fb. If not I guess I will return it dissolused.
j
January 25th, 2012 at 2:59 pm
Hello Janice,
Just to be clear, it is the Devicescape Easy WiFi app that was withdrawn; the EyeFi app is still available to the best of my knowledge.
Rgds,
John…