Buy Smart Phone, Get Stupid Apps
Crapware comes to Android:
It’s not restricted to Sony Ericsson handsets, either. HTC’s often held up as the paragon of Android quality — alongside Samsung — but my own Desire HD is riddled with stuff that I simply don’t want: 3Mobile-TV, 3Musik and Planet3 were all installed alongside third-party apps such as Amazon MP3, Bebo, Bejeweled Deluxe and a demo of EA’s Sims 3.
Who’s responsible? Networks, largely, which receive clean handsets and then load them up with rubbish after signing deals with numerous partners. And it’s not like you can just get rid of this software, either — most of it’s there to stay, with hard-coded blocks in place to ensure you don’t uninstall any of the tat you don’t want.
There are ways around it, with rooting a possibility if you’d like an untarnished Android experience. Personally, I use a superb app called LauncherPro to kill two birds with one stone: it replaces HTC Sense with its own customisable home screen, and it also allows you to hide apps in your app drawer — the next-best option if I can’t uninstall.
Some “solution.” Why people paying $150 or more for a phone — with contract — put up with being treated so shabbily by their carriers astounds me.
(Hat tip, Gruber, who says that “The funny thing is, Microsoft learned from Windows being open to this sort of nickel-and-diming from hardware makers — to my knowledge at least, Windows Phone 7 devices don’t have crapware. Just Android.”)
My original Droid had none of that stuff, while my Droid 2 Global was infested with MotoBlur. Rooting is the only way to fix the problem for good.
Sprint has recently reduced the amount bloatware it’s bundling with phones, and even making much of what’s left removable. My original Palm Pre came bundled with a ton of extra apps that you couldn’t remove.
My new Photon has much of less of that.
http://www.intomobile.com/2011/07/20/sprint-removing-android-bloatware/
It’s a step in the right direction.
Urk. Thanks for the heads-up. I’ve been thinking of finally getting a smartphone, if I can find a decent one for a pay as you go account. Definitely want nothing to do with crapware on a phone which can’t be removed.
One of the reasons I like building my own computer: no crapware. Pity I can’t switch that over to phones.
You can, at least in the Android ecosystem. Root the phone (i.e. give the bootloader Linux superuser status) and you can load any ROM you like. The original Droid has a wide array of ROMs for the loading and the Droid2 series are starting to catch up.
The issue of who owns your equipment shows up in a million ways. Software you don’t want but can’t delete, the copy of 1984 that Amazon can and did delete from your kindle, the FBI warning you have to watch every single time you play your legally purchased DVD, DRM relentlessly erasing fair use. Will we ever stop accepting the intrusions, indignities, and trespasses? Technology is about making your life easier, but it is also about making your life less yours. It doesn’t have to be that way, but I don’t see it changing any time soon.
Why do people pay it? Because the price of being connected in a restricted manner is better than not being connected at all. Networks know this, so they make the rules.
As the article indicates, iPhones don’t have to put up with it. But Android users don’t have to deal with $200 a year developer fees if they have an idea for an app that they want to try.
Until there is a network alternative where you can buy a phone and data package that belong to YOU and not the network that sells it… Android phones offer the greatest freedom for those with the knowledge to wield it.
So why do I pay? No other phone OS provides no bloat and total freedom. No network exists that provides exactly what I want. So I take what is available…
Bottom line – There is no better alternative and it is not worth it to me to create a better alternative
Apple charges $99 for developers, not $200. And for the price, developers get:
1. What is widely considered the best SDK in the business.*
2. Apple’s marketing team, which is known for doing a not-so-bad job. All those ads online and on TV featuring apps? Apple pays 100% for those.
3. Access to 250 million customers with credit cards, all in a single app store.
I haven’t heard a whole lot of complaints from developers, have you?
*Actually, now you can get the SDK for free, and do whatever you like with it. You don’t need to pay the fee unless you develop an app and want to sell it. Not a bad way to develop new developers.
Actually there a few different levels of ios developer programs. In the $99 individual program you distribute apps through the App store, which I assume costs additional money and your App is scrutinized by Apple; there is also an ‘Enterprise’ program for $299 and with that one you can actually put your apps on phones yourself (using iTunes, and there are restricions against installing it on just anyone’s phone).
As for the Windows Pone 7 device I have (Samsung Focus), it came with a half dozen AT&T Apps that I never use like ‘AT&T Family Map’,'AT&T Radio’, etc. but it does not prevent you from removing them. Guess we will see what happens next month when the Mango update comes out.
I just got an LG Revolution and it’s the same way. My network is Verizon, so I get saddled with all the VCast garbage. Unfortunately, there are problems with trying to root the latest Android version after the most recent update (Froyo 2.2.3). Currently, the only solution seems to be rolling back the update to 2.2.2 and rooting it. Forcing this crap down users’ throats by putting it on the phones in the first place is obnoxious, but trying to keep them from removing it is just boneheaded stupid.
You can uninstall itunes from an iphone?
Crapware is third-party software installed by OEMs — which you know already, of course. But why let facts get in the way of a good sneer, right?
Anyway, no, iTunes is integral to the functioning of an iPhone and can’t be uninstalled. In the same way, you can’t uninstall OS X from a Mac. Oh, I suppose you could manage to get nothing but Windows running on a Mac — but why? You could also put a Kia engine in a Mercdes, I suppose, to about the same effect.