It was about a month ago now when we told you about Australia Post’s new Parcel Send application, and one very worrying restriction that – in the circumstances – didn’t make an awful lot of sense.
For reasons that are unclear, Australia Post decided to block access to the app on handsets or tablets that have been rooted. Presumably with the goal of protecting users data against nefarious apps or things that would steal their data, Australia Post have ensured that installing this app on a rooted device will ensure, simply, that the app doesn’t work at all:
By so doing, Australia Post have denied many users the ability to use their app, presumably in the somewhat ill-informed hope that this will protect some users’ data. We didn’t understand this, and we still don’t, so we approached Australia Post through their social media and through their media relations teams for comment. Seems that wasn’t a wise use of our time:
@auspost still wanting to discuss the new Parcel Send app with your digital content manager for @ausdroid and its ROOT restrictions.
— Daniel Tyson (@phroghollow) September 22, 2013
@Ausdroid Thanks for your patience. There isn’t someone you can speak with but the Management team will review your comments. Sorry –Rory
— Australia Post (@auspost) September 25, 2013
There’s not much more to say. We tried to raise these issues with Australia Post but they’re not interested in talking to us. I guess that tells you what they think about the concerns of users with rooted handsets. I don’t know about you, but I read their response as “go jump, Australia Post doesn’t care”.
With that in mind, if you’ve got a rooted handset, don’t bother using this app. It won’t work. Job well done Australia Post.
