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Vodafone Backs Down In Row With Android Users

Posted by timothy on from the matchmaker-matchmaker-shut-up-shut-up dept.

jhernik writes with this excerpt from eWEEK Europe: "Vodafone has backed down in the face of angry opposition from Google Android customers, who last week received a software update thinking it contained Android 2.2, but instead found it contained Vodafone's branded 360 service. The Vodafone 360 service was launched in October last year. Essentially, Vodafone 360 is a user interface that puts social networking on the front screen of the phone, and arranges the users' contacts so you can reach any person with a phone call, IM, text or other call — or send a location message to meet up. However it also installs irremovable Vodafone-branded apps and bookmarks, including links to dating sites."

5 of 106 comments (clear)

  1. Dating Sites preinstllaed on the phone... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...lead to more usage of data sites with the SO picks it up and goes "Honey, why is Match.com on your phone?"

    Whoever thought of this was a total idiot.

  2. And this is why you buy unlocked/unbranded by ickleberry · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This shows once again that the little bit of a subsidy the network gives is never worth it.

    Remember lads this is in the UK where all networks offer good SIM-only plans and prepaid doesn't suck ass like it does in the States.

  3. Re:Backs down = by Briareos · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Or you could get a non-proprietary like any Android phone NOT sold by the carrier directly.

    At least that's how it works here in Europe; dunno if the US has caught up with the times yet - do you still have no SIM cards?

    --

    "I'm not anti-anything, I'm anti-everything, it fits better." - Sole

  4. Re:At what point isn't it a smartphone anymore? by CharlyFoxtrot · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I couldn't quite put my finger on what problem Vodafone 360 was designed to solve...

    The cashflow problem.

    These guys have 2 products: the phone which they sell to you, and you who they sell to their partners.

    --
    If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
  5. Re:Backs down = by Night64 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    That is the problem with the whole "regulation is bad" dogma. In Brazil telecom companies are forced to use the standards, in a way that I can freely hop between carriers at will. And my phone number is MY phone number. No matter what carrier I contract, my number goes with me. That's how a free market was supposed to work. Competition, folks.

    --
    Grey's Law: Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.