121–130 of 242 posts
I think this could be easily addressable by Google: remove the option to have uninstallable apps
All applications should be removable and all notifications should be disableable. Even Windows 10, which comes with all sorts of useless irritants, lets you do this.
I'm blaming mostly Samsung for this. Because of some, for me mind-boggling, reason, Samsung grew to be The Android manufacturer, and still is today. In earlier days I really don't recall their phones being any much better than their competition. But their software was and is bloated beyond good taste. And I guess because of that, other manufacturers just followed along.
It's still a problem with Android. If you buy a Dell laptop running Windows, it will come with a bunch of useless bloatware. But you can just uninstall it. On Linux, obviously you can uninstall whatever you want. On Android, you cannot, unless you happen to find the right incantations at the right time for your device before an update stops them.
Does anybody understand the economic point of making apps nonremovable? From the point of view of a vendor paying for access, presumably their goal is to spark interest and shift default choices. So I get why LinkedIn would pay to be on the phone when it leaves the factory. But if somebody doesn't want it, what do they gain by preventing removal? To me it seems kinda like DRM: I'm sure some executives get woodies at…
The worst fucking thing on my phone, BY FAR, is the Google Assistant. I have literally thrown my phone multible times because that GOD DAMN google assistant keeps poping up and no matter how many hours I spend online I can't fix this issue. Google Assistant and the Samsung program that does the same thing (namaly pissing my off and refusing to be deactivated). Its the worst experiance.
Most of the bloatware comes from Google itself: on my Samsung Phone I have Google Chrome, multiple Google Play stores, Google Keep, Google Photos (sends your photos to the Google cloud), Google Drive, Google office apps, etc. I've never wanted all those apps, I don't even have a Google account...
Hmm. I use literally all of those.
Most of the bloatware comes from Google itself: on my Samsung Phone I have Google Chrome, multiple Google Play stores, Google Keep, Google Photos (sends your photos to the Google cloud), Google Drive, Google office apps, etc. I've never wanted all those apps, I don't even have a Google account...
Does anybody understand the economic point of making apps nonremovable? From the point of view of a vendor paying for access, presumably their goal is to spark interest and shift default choices. So I get why LinkedIn would pay to be on the phone when it leaves the factory. But if somebody doesn't want it, what do they gain by preventing removal? To me it seems kinda like DRM: I'm sure some executives get woodies at…
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Does that mean these apps can't be updated? Or are only updated when the OEM updates android? That's a crazy design deciscion, especially for Chrome!
No, it means nothing of the sort. They're updated as usual from Play Store.
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Then installing/deploying these apps on a read-only partition doesn't make much sense in the first place.
Why? As far as the user is concerned, the end result is the same. The app doesn't appear in the app drawer, and none of its entry points are exposed to the OS. The user who just bought a phone gets a fully functional phone right out of the box instead of having to wait for downloads. A factory reset to get back to the initial state is as simple as wiping all writable partitions.