Is Google pulling tethering apps from the Android Market?
By Joshua Topolsky 
posted March 31st 2009 9:55AM
posted March 31st 2009 9:55AM
Google enters into distribution agreements with device manufacturers and Authorized Carriers to place the Market software client application for the Market on Devices. These distribution agreements may require the involuntary removal of Products in violation of the Device manufacturer's or Authorized Carrier's terms of service" Google Developer Distribution AgreementOf course, this should come as quite a surprise, given statements T-Mobile's Cole Brodman made to us during the G1 launch last year, and Google's seemingly rampant interest in being the de facto open source mobile OS. It's not clear at this point if this is an isolated incident (possibly related to the root nature of the app), or just the beginning of a more widespread move. Google (and T-Mobile to some extent) -- we await your response.
[Thanks, Chris]
Or download it directly on your phone since, unlike mobile safari you can download stuff in the browser, including apps.
The comment in the news is not quite appropriate.
Do you really believe Google are allowed to help doing illegal things? Of course not. And it's not legal by the, at this time, only plan from T-Mobile. I just read through it.
So what makes the difference is: YOU CAN STILL download and use tethering apps. You just can't download it from Marketplace anymore.
It's just like you would say GNU/Linux is not free, because you may not download illegal songs from Debian, because the RIAA said so.
That's the good thing with free and open stuff. Google can say "No more from our place", but no one keeps you from downloading it directly from a website. Unless T-Mobile sends the lawyers to such a site.
I'm sure creative Android users will find a way get around this.
I found this article about how to tether your windows mobile device with OSX in the mean time. Enjoy!
http://networkjew.com/2009/03/30/tether-windows-mobile-phone-mac/
Haha whats the point? Its soooooooooo much easier just to use WMWifiRouter. Doesnt EVERYTHING have wifi nowadays anyway?
grrrr....
all the ignorance to "what the hell is actually happening" in this topic is really annoying me.
Summary
1. Android market is just a centralized location for apps that Google provides. Kinda like if Microsoft ran Download.com for PC users.
2. You can still install and use any app you can download (unlike the iPhone without jailbreaking).
3. This has nothing to do with Open source or Phone locking. I don't believe there is any program installation lockout on any Android product at the moment.
Exactly.
I can't tell if most of these Engadget users are seriously uninformed or are just haters. I'm inclined to think the latter - there's this undercurrent of angst towards Google/Android that I don't quite understand.
Like the foolish comment:
"And so it begins. Farewell, Android. I knew you were too good to be true."
What? You now have to click 5 buttons on your computer to install an app as opposed to getting it OTA via the Market and this guy is preparing a eulogy?
Of course Android will comply with the carriers demands about stuff like this, especially given that there's ONE carrier and essentially ONE phone (US) to work with. Google and the carriers both know that the Market isn't the only way to get an app.
Imagine if Windows users could only get their software from some ubiquitous Microsoft Software Portal. That's a scary thought. However, that's not the case - Windows users can get software anywhere they want and install it on their Microsoft Windows operating system. Same thing here with Android.
The iPhone is the scary situation I described above. God help us all if Microsoft had 100% control over what we installed on our PCs...
Yeah, you are right. But this logic didn't work for Windows Mobile. Yeah you could do nearly anything you wanted on the platform (see wmwifirouter.com) but it was too difficult for the common idiot. Android needs to be the platform for the power user and the common idiot, as the idiot buys a lot more phones. This is where the iphone succeeds, not because its the best, but because it's the best for an idiot.
"I can't tell if most of these Engadget users are seriously uninformed or are just haters..."
I cant imagine he's either. Josh wrote a fricking BOOK on the G1!
Told you that android was destroyed when they started with their apps-pulldown 'technology, move along and find something else people.
You are spreading misinformation.
Google is pulling tethering apps from their app store, not the phone. If you already have a tethering app or want to get it somewhere else more power to you. This isn't an iPhone - you have options.
Your statement is like saying, "Microsoft.com stop hosting the Yahoo Messenger App. I told you Windows was broken".
@aconfort
Absolutely agree. I think Android would benefit any way it can make it easier to install apps outside the marketplace. This will help the "idiot" go download software and install it on their Android phone just like they would install some software on their PC. Hopefully Google can learn some lessons from Windows Mobile when it comes to application deployment.
@Wwhat
Three attempts later, I think I understand what you're saying. As has been said here many times, the Android Market is the only way to legally/easily get apps on your phone. Maybe you're thinking of the iPhone, which needs the App Store to get apps (without jailbreaking)?
There are many ways to put apps on your Android phone, Google is probably only obligated to take stuff down from their official Market, not become the Android Application Police and go shut down 3rd party markets and random websites.
@Dopefish
Actually, I meant the people leaving comments, not the post author! The Gizmodo guys are tools, Engadget guys are a-o-kay :)
What you said makes no sense. I'm guessing what you meant is that android is dead because google is removing one app(which I still think is probably due to copyright problems rather than anything else, since it's a blatant copy of the wifi tether app on xda-developers but the guy charged for it) from one of the available app stores... Yeah... I kinda doubt that. Anyone who has root on there phone and could have actually used it probably already goes to xda-developers and can download it from there.
Umm I'd say for this app it was probably taken down since it was taken from xda-developers by some guy and put up in the market where he charged for it. I was hoping it would be taken down when I first saw it go up on the marketplace.
kccboy2004 = Imaginary post creator.
Please remember that it was widely regarded as unprecedented that a big-name carrier sold a mobile phone as open as G1. I suspect going root on your own phone is a very frightening prospect for mobile carriers, believe it or not.
I think Google started a kind of a silent open source revolution in the mobile space. If only a few of the phone makers release great Android phones, the major carriers will eventually start selling them, and that has the potential to open up the mobile space, which is very much against how they want it (which is basically what we have at the moment.)
Or maybe I'm wrong, who knows.
Hah! Google = evil, apple = evil, microsoft = evil. We're surrounded by evil!
Even your carrier is evil! Your Phone is evil! Your computer is evil! The electricity coursing through your electricity is the sperm of satan! Throw your electric goods into the ocean and live free! Hahahah!
But really, Apple didn't remove the tethering app if you had already bought it. So google and apple are evil equivalents.
except you can still go over to xda-developers and download the tether app(the original one) and freely use it...
You can also download it directly by going to http://code.google.com/p/android-wifi-tether/ on your G1 and installing it from the site.
Wow, this whole open source thing is amazing. Wait, no, is isn't... How is this any better than closed source and APPL telling you what you can and can't have!?
Maybe someone will come up with a real open source phone OS one of these days.
probably because you can still have it, they just don't give it to you. You can still freely go over to the website and download it directly and install it on the phone since, you know, unlike the iPhone, android lets you do that.
Silly comments like this from confused commenters seem to have made up at least half of the comments to this post. Are there really that many people itching to paint Android, and thereby Google, as evil? Or do people just not understand that Apple's way isn't the ONLY way, and can't comprehend android/winmo?
/Facepalm
Google is taking these down from their appstore..
HOWEVER, you can install stuff from other places.
Okay? No totalitarian regime in place here: YOU CAN STILL INSTALL THESE APPS FROM OTHER PLACES.
Gosh.
Exactly. This is not a matter of Google making these apps illegal. It's simply a matter of Google not wanting to be the legal publisher of these apps.
Is this going to be an issue with UK based G1's as well? If so its quite difficult to understand, I have an HTC Kaiser from T-Mobile UK at the moment and they couldnt care less if I tether it to my laptop. Does this mean essentially that when I move to android in a few months on the same contract I won't be able to do it?
"Does this mean essentially that when I move to android in a few months on the same contract I won't be able to do it?"
No, you can still download the tether app(s) from the developer's website. You just won't be able to download then directly from the marketplace.
Actually I'm about a week away from saying screw the G1. I'm seriously hating this POS...the latest update has given me nothing but crashes, freezes, app hangs, and the occasional spontaneous reboot. My personal fav is trying to multitask while on the phone over BT...the thing has occasional decided to start dropping audio.
My company just upgraded our phones to the Touch Pro...it so completely beats the shit out of the G1 and Android its not even funny. Plus you can easily tether with the built in software already included in the OS.
I had real hopes for the G1 and Android....as it stands 5 months in an incomplete platform that Google expected everyone to develop for to fill in the holes...still is missing...well everything.
*shrug* to each his own. Sounds like your G1 is defective, mine has never spontaneously rebooted and the only apps that hang are some 3rd party ones, so probably bugs in their program. You should probably try to get a warranty replacement through T-Mobile. I used to have the HTC Touch and have to say, my experience with android has been that it's WAY more stable and has far fewer crashes and such. Android definitely isn't perfect but in terms of stability it's far superior to WM... at least if your G1 hardware isn't defective.
Oh gosh, what a shocker, won't somebody think of the children, et cetera.
When Apple banned tethering from the App Store, and the anti-Apple fanboys went wild, a few people tried their best to point out that it was clearly a stipulation of the carriers, and not Apple's doing.
When the Android Market was announced, and everyone said that here was an OS that would allow tethering, a few people tried their best to point out that it was unlikely the carriers would permit tethering to freely occur, irrespective of whether a tethering app was available.
Now we see this happening, and regardless of the cause of this particular takedown, it remains the case that carriers will not allow tethering except on their terms, no matter how "open" your OS is. It is not just Android - Apple can include tethering capability in OS 3.0 all they like, without the carriers agreeing to it, it just will not happen.
Why is it so difficult to understand? Tethering uses a carrier's services and the carrier decides who uses their services and under what conditions they can use it. It has got nothing to do with the manufacturer of the device or the maker of the OS. You cannot blame Google or Apple or Nokia or Palm. It is not rocket science, hey.