Very un-appy with eBay

My first proper post of this year is unfortunately another rant about the bizarre actions of a tech giant, this time eBay for their inexplicable decision to remove their mobile app's compatibility with older Android versions and woefully inadequate response to the resulting backlash. It all started when I did a factory reset on my phone. It's a Samsung Galaxy S2, which may be old but I've looked after it so it still works fine and perfectly suits my needs of reading emails, Facebook browsing, a few calls and texts, and the occasional photo. I deplore the wastefulness of modern society and can't stand to see perfectly functional products thrown away simply because they're old, so I can't justify replacing the old S2 to myself while it still works.

The reset installed Android Jelly Bean 4.1.2, the newest version of the operating system officially supported by this device. Everything was going well and all the apps I installed worked fine - until I tried to install the eBay app, only for the app store to refuse to download it as it is "not compatible with my device". Huh? The version I had before worked fine, going from version 4.0 to 4.1 isn't even a major upgrade and Android 4.1.2 was released only about five years ago so it's hardly an ancient obsolete operating system that no one uses anymore. Being unsupported but still usable is one thing but incompatible and totally unusable is quite another, so how come the eBay app is no longer compatible with my OS and why aren't eBay doing anything about it?

Apologies for absence

Just a brief update to let you know I'm still here and the blog hasn't been abandoned, even though it's more than two weeks into the new year and I haven't published a single post yet. I was back at work on 2nd January after an all-too-short Christmas break and straight into one of our busiest periods, which has meant a hectic schedule and working some overtime, leaving little time and energy to type up the blogs I have drafted in my head. Things are starting to calm down now so normal service will be resumed soon. I'll take this opportunity to wish all my readers a very belated Happy New Year and thank you for your support over the past three years. Rest assured there will be new material coming soon so stay tuned for updates!