Peek might have a serious problem on its hands. There are widespread reports of users not getting their messages either in a timely manner or at all. Even worse, there are more than a few users stating they are getting other people’s emails, Twitter feeds, and text messages.
Peek was originally supposed to be a dead simple email-only handheld device — a smartphone alternative, really. Over time the company started adding more and more functions to keep it not only relevant in the social networking world, but also to justify new models. But it seems to be going horribly wrong now.
It all started a few days ago when Peek added Google Voice SMS capabilities to the device for the first time — huge potential, but that’s another post — along with other early builds of apps, including a Twitter client. Those that jumped on the early adapter boat and linked in their Google Voice accounts seem to be the only ones with the issue so far. First users reported getting Twitter updates from people they weren’t following. Then suddenly misdelivered text messages via Google Voice started appearing.
Everything seems to be working peachy besides this little issue of users getting delayed or misdirected messages. We say little in jest, really. This is a huge issue and worse yet, the company hasn’t responded to the pleading users on the official forum site or to our emails. Hopefully they worked through the July 4th weekend to fix this gigantic security hole.
The issue seems widespread and not just limited to an early firmware build, but rather to people running the official 1.10+ firmware that rolled out last week. Some users have found disabling PeekSocial has solved some of the issues, but also strips away all the social networking functions from the device. Since the bug seems isolated to Google Voice right now, the best advice we can give Peek users is to both limit your GV usage and start a Tumblr blog to feature some of the more steamy texts you’re getting. Our tipster has a couple that would make the pages of Penthouse, too.
[Thanks for the tip, Johnathan!]
UPDATE: Peek issued a formal apology stating that they take the data of their users is extremely important to them. However one of our original tipsters is still getting rouge text messages so I’m not sure who to believe. Also, contrary to what’s said in their post, I did send them a very nice, open-ended email two hours before this was posted. I still haven’t gotten a response.