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'Bloatware' Becoming a Problem On Android Phones
elrous0 writes "According to a recent article in Wired, consumers of many new Android devices (including Samsung's Vibrant and HTC's EVO) are complaining about the increasing presence of something that has plagued consumer PC's for years: Bloatware (or, to use the more kind euphemism, 'Pre-installed software' that the computer manufacturer gets paid to include on a new PC). Unfortunately the bloatware (aka 'crapware') that comes with these phones has a nasty quality not found on even the most bloated PC: it can't be removed. Many angry consumers have begun to complain openly about this disturbing trend."
Exactly, I am so pissed I can't remove that crap from my EVO.
Guess that'll teach ya to buy GSM only and direct from the manufacturer.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
I thought android was the "Open" one...
The horrible thing about Android is that phone makers can do anything they want with it.
“It’s different from phone to phone and operator to operator,” says Keith Nowak, spokesman for HTC. “But in general, the apps are put there to meet the operator’s business and revenue needs.”
Nowak must be new to PR. He was supposed to spin it as "free apps, everybody wins!" But instead he handed out a healthy dosage of the truth. Enjoy it, it rarely happens.
My work here is dung.
Apple doesn't install said Fart apps. rather the end users choose to. Not so with bloatware...
But at least the Sprint apps are full-featured and not trial only.
For now.
Demanding constant attention will only lead to attention.
It's not an issue with the OS, certainly, but the Android platform in particular and the OHA in general was founded with the intention of putting the carriers back in the drivers seat and give them back the control over the phones that they were beginning to lose to RIM, Danger and Apple. Get it? It's OPEN, thus the user can do whatever it wants with it... Of course the end user is a user, unless they're buying a heavily subsidized and locked phone, in which case they're merely a partner with the real user, the carrier.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
It is exactly for reasons like this we should support truly open platforms for mobiles instead of "open" like android. I am really happy with my N900 and I hope MeeGo will be a huge success.
It sounds like you need to sit down with your father and have "the talk." Fortunately, now days you are not alone, and there are plenty of useful web sites to help you through this difficult discussion. One such site can be found here. While it may be a little uncomfortable and possibly a bit embarrassing at first, you will find that he may keep an open mind and be willing to share some of his fears and views on this sensitive but important topic.
It's sad how the open platform gets saddled with crap you can't remove and the closed platform (iPhone) is kept clean by a CEO who gives a shit about aesthetics and user experience.
Try to get an iPhone without iTunes.
Interesting view of history.
In 1998, Microsoft had two operating system lines, one for more serious computing and one for personal computing, neither clearly superior to Mac OS. The merger into the clearly superior XP was in the future. Moreover, the field was and had been dominated by Microsoft for various business reasons, and there wasn't much room for expansion left in the market.
In 2010, I've seen no evidence that Android is better or worse than iOS. It's theoretically more open, but much more vulnerable to what the cell phone carriers want to do to it. The market is still wide open, and anybody with a claim for previous dominance has been losing market share fairly fast. The limits on what a user can do with a non-jailbroken iPhone are not onerous to most people in practice. In short, I really don't see much of a comparison.
In addition, neither Windows 95/98, Windows NT, Mac OS9, or iOS was or is open source. Android is. That means that Google can't really enforce anything on the cell phone companies, since they really don't need Google's permission for anything. Apple enforces what AT&T can and can't do with the iPhone, and given the choice of giving some corporation power over my phone Apple's a lot nicer a possibility than AT&T or Verizon or Spring. I don't see that Google has any possible fix for bloatware, and would be interested to know what one would be.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
I have no idea what you're talking about, but whatever it is, it's not what anyone else is talking about.
The iPhone simply won't run until synced with iTunes. Seriously, it displays an image showing the USB cable and the iTunes icon when turned on out of the box. Until you sync with iTunes, the phone is completely useless. (Same thing after a hardware reset.)
Which is completely retarded, because it already has your phone number and subscriber information since it's on the fucking SIM card! There's absolutely no reason to require iTunes at all, but they do. Why? To force you to install Apple's bloat-ware on your computer.
Fun fact: iTunes for Windows comes with a descent chunk of Mac OS X ported to Windows since they're too lazy to make a proper Windows application. But, apparently, not too lazy to port part of Cocoa to Windows.