I am utterly exasperated! inReach has been such a fantastic facility, which I used almost since day one. My phone is LG-G5 (860 model) with Android 6.0.1. There has been a recent Earthmate update which I suspect has now broken the messaging system. I tested this on a mates phone (also 6.0.1) and he has same fault. A message received by the inReach (model without screen, just buttons) flashes the message LED when a message is received. I could always then pair the phone/earthmate/bluetooth to the inReach and the message would be delivered into the phone. But not any more!! Every time now the phone/app gives an error message about being unable to store the message, but from then on it is LOST. This is a catastrophic failure of the 'system'. This is a safety-critical service. I contacted Garmin support and (no surprise though it's a depressing indictment of the modern business world) they basically said old inReach no longer supported, buy a new one. They said leave phone paired to the inReach 24/7 if I want to receive a message. Well sorry - it's not meant to be restrictive like that. What I can't work out is if this is an error in the Earthmate app that the software developer might easily/quickly correct (which they should), or whether this is more sinister - a deliberate breaking of messaging on the old device. The cynic in me says the latter. I was dismayed that Garmin did the usual monopoly take-over tactics, stamp their logo over everything and then break the compatability with older android versions, which led me to buy the new LG phone! I've had enough of this, but then again there is no comparable safety-critical service in which event Garmin should accept some responsibility and do what they (reasonably) can to fix it. Please Please get the messaging working again. It still works ok using Apple IOS devices, but the maps can't be stored on external memory with those and besides, surely Android is 50% of the market?
I suspect iOS won't be far behind. That particular device was released Fall of 2012. I replace my PCs after 4-5 years because of software incompatibilities. I can't see why this would be any different. I don't know your knowledge level of programming, but to keep things backwards compatible for full endurance takes up a lot of space. This was an issue with MS Windows during the old NT/2000 days when even their proprietary compressed packaging was going to go past a single DVD for installation. I can't imagine how this would be for a Linux driven system, but bloat does come to mind. I'd say you had a good run on it and it may be time to replace it.
