don’t get an android?

“after all, this sort of thing doesn’t happen on iOS” True, but then, with iOS you can’t do much of anything with your rented Iphone without praying to the gods of Apple for permission to do it

Yes at least with Windows you can wipe the thing and re-install from a pukka MS OEM disk sans crapware.

@Steve Cassidy – hope you’ve donated some of your easy money to the developers

@Miles – there have been several cases of apps stealing data on the iOS platform, although, like Android, they are soon pulled.

There haven’t been so many of them, but iOS has had enough.

@David – Security issues aside, I think we should give credit where credit is due.

Apple have resisted the insistance of resellers to load ‘crapware’ on their computers, and they’ve resisted any insistance of network operators to load ‘crapware’ on their phones.

It’s an oft-glossed over point that no doubt deserves at least a little consideration.

This article does not mention that Apple doesn’t allow the carriers to put such garbage on their phone. But Google and the Android manufacturers rolled over for the carriers. Not because Google is open because it isn’t and never has been. Surprising there are people who still buy into that.

I definitely hate this part of Android, but it’s not necessarily Google’s fault. Although they’re trying to finally do something about it, it’s really all the big networks and carriers, as you said, who are installing all this crapware onto amazing phones running an amazing OS.

It is unfortunate that these a$$holes are taking advantage of Android like this, and users who don’t know any better will simply blame the phone that they’re holding, and possibly not recommend Android to anyone.

I faced a bunch of crapware when I bought my HTC Aria, which was AT&T’s second Android phone. It took up a bunch of space which limited me to the number of apps that I could install. I also couldn’t install apps onto the SD card since it was running 2.1, and the 2.2 update came many months later.

I obviously rooted my phone way before they released the update. I got rid of all their stupid apps and installed CyanogenMod. It is running beautifully on my phone right now, and I get to enjoy the many features of Android 2.3 and more. It’s a great solution for geeks who were screwed over like this, but I can’t say much for the average consumers.

But android crapware doesn’t seem to slow your phone down – just ignore it

@Richard: If you think you’re getting a cheaper phone because of the crapware, you’d be mistaken. They’re charging you just precisely what they think they can charge for the thing and then they’re getting whatever they can out of their “partners” with the crapware in addition to what they’re getting from your hide.

Then buy unlocked phones. They cost in the $600 range though. Cell companies charge $200 or less (or even give it to you for free) because they recover the cost via the crapware. Compare that to an emachine that costs $200 vs. a high-end workstation that costs $3,000. One has dozens of crapware and free trial to AOL, and the other has 2-3 disk utils and remote management software at most.

Go to any online merchant and find out the “real” cost of your smartphone, and compare it to what you paid (or not paid) when you signed the 2-year contract.

@Bob, #13: Which apps? The only one I’m aware of was Aurora Feint, which wasn’t pulled. I’m not aware of Apple using their recalling kill switch EVER (and I’d love to know if it’s been used).

Well, there was the password management app (not 1Password, don’t remember who) whose developer was anonymously tracking passcodes and reported on the findings.

But I think #13 is referring to the uninstallable Apple apps that come with the iPhone; hard to argue that the app store and iTunes are “crapware”, but I won’t argue that Stocks has merit.

@Hector

So you hate pretty much every single app. The issue is, as a programmer, I need to know various apps exist. I might want to launch Safari or an Image Browser or an MMS client. To maintain simplicity for 99% of the using public, making these specific apps ALWAYS available makes life 100X easier for the development community.

For those people that simply want a BASH shell and nothing else, Android really is the sweet choice.

People blaming the carriers for all the unwanted software that come on Android phones need to rethink their position. Carriers have ALWAYS done that, even before Android came out. So it is really Google’s fault for allowing them to install all this crap on your phone. Google knows the reputation of these carriers for installing this stuff on phones and yet they gave them the power to do so.

The advantage with such crapware is that the devices are cheaper. Carriers get money, they profit a little bit from it, and shave a bit more off the cost of your device. (Compare that with a fruity device, which costs more and stays that way the whole year)

@Steve: You can still have the Webkit libraries installed. You don’t need an icon installed on your desktop / homescreen. On the i-series phones, you aren’t allowed to create dependencies on other applications directly anyway. Heck, in the Developer Agreement, you’re not even suppose to use SDKs other people make (that may have changed by now).

Android has no such problems. It’s designed in such a way as to share content (be it text, pictures, etc) nicely. You install an properly designed app that can share (FB, Twitter, SMS, a notepad app, URLs, etc) and then use a properly designed app to move content from one app to the next with two button presses (Share > Pick App) — if that.

@J:
You know what? Nobody in the general public really cares. Even with all this supposed crapware, Android is *STILL* 52% of the US marketplace. It just doesn’t bother most people all that much — Especially with Android, where you put whatever you want on your homescreen and never really have to touch your app drawer.

If you have Apple products, you’re a mindless drone, a fashion victim and stupid. In the good old days you were of course also gay and a communist. Now maybe not, but you’re obviously against freedom and clueless.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
I’m still trying to figure out if being clueless feels better than being a commie. I bet there’s an app for that!

@Bob: “Actually iOs is loaded with crapware like Itunes and Apple’s App market.”

That’s not the same. Those apps are essential for accessing the basic functionality of the iPhone’s features/ecosystem and put in place by Apple. Crapware is generally defined as third-party apps puts on a given PC without direct consent of the maker of the OS.

Now, you may not *like* Apple’s built-in apps, but that’s another debate. And since you can put them all out of sight in a folder (unlike crapware on Android) it seems like a silly, overly-defensive thing for you to bring up.

@JT: “Cell companies charge $200 or less (or even give it to you for free) because they recover the cost via the crapware.”

Ahh.. no, no they don’t. They recover the cost by charging you a higher contract price over 18-24 months. The crapware fees are just a bit of extra cash.

McAfee WaveSecure on the iPhone
http://www.simplerna.com/2011/08/review-make-your-iphone-data-secure.html

Great post but this stuff *does* happen with iOS – I can’t remove apps I don’t need like Game Center, Safari and iTunes.

At least with Android its only the network company trying to take complete control of out lives – pity the iPhone people, many don’t even realised the extent to which their options are controlled.

Owning an iphone i’m somewhat bemused at this article. I’m not saying it’s better than Android, only that I haven’t had any carrier crapware on there. I have enough with my laptop thankyou.

@James Barnes: “Great post but this stuff *does* happen with iOS – I can’t remove apps I don’t need like Game Center, Safari and iTunes.”

Apple supplies those apps to access the basic features of the iPhone. That’s a lot different than a third-party app thrown on by yet another third-party with the intent to sell you something or market themselves and subsidize the cost of the product.

Besides, a lot of “crapware” can’t be easily removed or hidden, but you can create a folder in iOS and move all those apps into it if you really object.

I love it when an old laptop can run better than it did from new after formatting and reinstalling windows without all the preloaded software. Shame on a mobile phone such as the HTC you have to flash the rom to get rid of all the operator loaded utilities and risk invalidating the warranty.

I bought one of this… Xpheria mini pro…. and after a great discussion with Vodafone assistance, and paid for unblocked the phone, now i’m having the problem with pre-installed programs from Vodafone, that use my personal information….
and after i wrote on the compliance book, the answer was similar to: We apologise but we can´t do nothing….
…now i?m learning how to “Rooting” the phone to delete all that Crap….