1. Galaxy S 3 includes undeletable Pizza Hut bookmark http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1707047
2. Galaxy custom web browser allows random web sites to make links that wipe and reset the phone: http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/117422-samsung-galaxy-s-3-re...
Carrier bundles also allow carriers to specify bookmarks to add to Safari, the idea being that users "might find useful" to have direct links to check their invoices or so. Such bookmarks are of course deletable.
Or the more general case of allowing carriers to mandate restrictions that Apple do certain things that provide a poorer experience? Of course.
It has the familiar smell of desperation to monetize everything. Unless of course Samsung is striving to be known as the Ryanair of consumer electronics.
Marketing people from major companies use a Samsung phone and sees the bookmark will think "I wish our brand was there. How do we reach out to the carrier or Samsung to put our brand there as well?"
a few weeks later in a meeting with a carrier or Samsung, "Yes, we can put a bookmark there for X dollars. However if you want it to be undeletable, you can pay 2X dollars" or "Pizza Hut is paying us 2X dollars for that and we don't want to put more than one there, so you need to outbid pizza hut for that spot."
next step.... money rolling in.
Apple was not paid by a third party to include it's own software features.
Game Center is like S Voice, a first part developed software that is billed as a "Feature".
Apple has no equivalent to "Pizza Hut" bookmarks that can't be deleted, because they control their carrier relationships better than Samsung who is willing to give their partners the freedom to install and screw up what they want.
Fortunately, Samsung is generally pretty good about letting us users have custom roms, which IMO trumps the Apple advantage for us power users. A custom rom > non-bloated default iOS, to me.
"Feature" is just semantics, then.
I'll take a pizza ad over Game Center opening up and asking me to make an account every time I play a game, thanks. But unlike the Apple die-hards, I can admit that both a utter crap.
I totally agree and Google's forced G+ integration with the newer G+ Games services is very frustarting too.
No G+ I do not want your crappy me-too social network attached to my gaming apps.
But as is generally the case, I imagine people will hate Apple and love Google for doing the same business practice...
For example, emergency calling functionality was broken for a long time and has been reverse engineered only recently [2].
[1] https://plus.google.com/101093310520661581786/posts/aoAGK5yo... [2] http://www.androidcentral.com/cyanogenmod-fixes-emergency-ca...
I'll point you to the Apple weather app with the prominent Yahoo! link at the bottom left. This would be more tolerable if the app itself wasn't terrible. I really wish I could delete Apple's apps, why not come with them installed and let you remove and re-add, say like podcasts.
Apple does not get paid by another company to load its default apps onto the phone.
E.g, a "Cosmopolitan App" that you can't delete and can use to only buy Cosmopolitan.
That is the proper analogy here.
That would transform PizzaHut from an obnoxious ad ("seller oriented") to a genuinely useful option I would probably use on occasion ("customer oriented").
I dislike intrusive ads (and spending good money on a physical gadget just to be met by "congratulations, and incidentally you've also bought into a lifelong relationship with this pizza vendor" is intrusive).
But I don't mind being told that "newspapers are here, food is over there"; I might even find it useful at some point.
I still think it would be nice if Apple would let me hide the non-deletable apps I don't use: Let me hide the newsstand icon, pop it up again if I ever decide to subcribe to a newspaper.
But the newsstand doesn't grate me the way a permanent link to any particular magazine would. Any particular magazine is unlikely to be my favorite, it might even be one I hate. That doesn't imply that I hate magazines, newsstands, pizza or food in general.
The only apps that should not be deletable are core apps like settings and the app store.
Even those should be deletable if it asks you to designate another app on your phone as the replacement for that core service. That replacement app should be API compatible with the data store of the phone itself.
I should be able to replace Apple Maps with Google Maps. Camera with any number of other Camera apps. Photos with any other local photo browsing app. Calendar with something like Fantastical. Weather with something like Yahoo Weather. etc. etc.
I mean, I knew Apple haters were dense but this is excessive.
Sigh.
Anyway, you completely missed the point of my comment :).
Moral of the story: don't live in the USA.
Here's a thought: when all you can do is rail against the "haters", you are in a bad state of mind.
Yes. This is quite real of me, I assure you. If I can't make it Go Away if I have no use for it, it's spam. As it happens, I've consolidated my reading. It isn't in Newsstand. It should not trouble me if I don't want it, and having a "junk" drawer is a sad non-solution.
Interesting how after your original argument (the difference between app and bookmark) was defeated you came up with a new one (percentage of people liking).
Spam is defined as whether it annoys the receiver, not the sender's intentions. And there's no 'unsubscribe' in iOS.
However bad you think Apple might be, Samsung is far, far worse, just much less successful and slick about it. I had thought the old adage about "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" was only believed by halfwits, apparently I was wrong.
Prepare to be educated. Yes a lot of it is a hack but on half the supported phones CM isn't too much different really. At least the whited00r releases are stable and have consistent feature support over obsolete handsets.
The carrier is who you should gripe for the firmware misfeatures which you don't like in their phones. But due to the monopoly situation, they don't have to care very much what their subscribers think.
Only place i really don't see bloatware is on my hacked HP touchpad. My only tablet until a month ago was a 32gb HP touchpad that I got from $199.
On day one I installed android on it and helped with some the kernel tweaks. Now i'm just running cyanogenmod9 there.
It is a blissful experience. Full control over browser. dumb webdeveloper used 8px and limited zoom? no problem, zoom anyway. dumb webdeveloper put in 1024px wide paragraph? no problem, zoom and double tab.
Even the more hardcore lack of control: publisher limited a game for a specific device (fishlabs and sony experia deals for example). no problem, edit build.props, say you are that device and download.
...Then, last month work forced to expend lots and lots of time on a latest Ipad and a galaxy tab3.
The galaxy tab is awful. shitty in every aspect. Only upside is that it have a IR blaster. I love those things. It is also pretty light. But then, the screen is crappier than anything i've ever used. just awful to look at. Then the ugly custom samsung skin just make it WORSE. they use twice the space for browser tabs for example. it's just idiotic. worst tablet experience in using a browser that one can have. Just do yourself a favor and get a generic chinese one instead. Also, it has the exact same performance as my old touchpad with one cpu for web rendering and movies. samsung really crapped all over this one.
The latest ipad (apple sucks on that, can't even refer it to a number because i can't see any number on the device case or software... is that an ipad3?) has the most awesome screen. But it's heavy as hell and the corners cut your hands if you are trying to hold it to watch netflix in bed. If feels fast, and will probably be for anyone not slightly multitasking. Multitask is so crap that, I kid you not, changing tabs in the browser, or going back one page, results in a full redraw of the page, and sometimes a refresh of that page. For example, go to reddit or hackernews... scroll the page as you do when reading the index. Click on a link or open it in another tab. read that link. Press back or close the tab. The index page REFRESHES because it was probably out of memory or something. now you are at the index page, at the TOP! your scroll information is lost. And probably the items changed in the mean time. Totally shitty experience. Changing apps is even worse. Several apps 'restart' when you multitask. So, it's the perfect device if you ever use one app at a time and have a fully linear, one tab, browser usage pattern.
I'm just very glad i have the touchpad. Wonder if a nexus tablet is as good... probably not.
I prefer my Nexus 7 over my Touchpad. It's a bit faster and much lighter. Touchpad has mostly been relegated to the Touchstone charging dock since I got the Nexus 7 last year. Also, no app compatibilities that the Touchpad had at times (mostly due to the 1024x768 screen). Also, the Touchpad is far from perfect when running Android 4.2 or later.
mostly browsing.
Also, i'm on CM9. which is android 4.0 something. The last thing that didn't work and was holding me on CM7 is the camera. It's working now. CM10, android 4.2 is coming and the reports are good, but it is a work in progress. That said. There is ZERO features i want from 4.2. OTH, CM7 and 9 have a feature where i can limit which permissions the APP is allowed to use at runtime. and other niceties such as render effects, etc. noted, all available on all androids, but not exposed as options to the user. because users are dumb or something and can't have options.
https://plus.google.com/104277415207525128383/posts/dv6tyqLV...
As of iOS 7, you can move the Newsstand rack into a folder.
http://howto.cnet.com/8301-11310_39-57602683-285/with-ios-7-...
> Multitask [on iOS on iPad 4] is so crap that, I kid you not, changing tabs in the browser, or going back one page, results in a full redraw of the page, and sometimes a refresh of that page. [...] Changing apps is even worse. Several apps 'restart' when you multitask.
I suspect you haven’t upgraded to iOS 7.
http://www.macworld.com/article/2048935/get-to-know-ios-7-mu...
> Full control over browser. dumb webdeveloper used 8px and limited zoom? no problem, zoom anyway. dumb webdeveloper put in 1024px wide paragraph? no problem, zoom and double tab.
All possible on iOS. In Safari, use Reader or JavaScript bookmarklets. Or use one of the many third party browsers that have web dev tools.
> The latest ipad (apple sucks on that, can't even refer it to a number because i can't see any number on the device case or software... is that an ipad3?)
The latest 10" iPad can be referred to as iPad 4th Generation or iPad Late 2012.
you were right on the newstand thing. moved to the garbage folder.
Now the multitasking, all i've described is on IOS7.
The page refresh happens when reading hacker news, so i'm not sure it's a memory issue. It's just bad user experience based on some dumb assumption at design time probably.
Whether you think built-in iOS features are "crapware" is besides the point. Everything that ships with iOS is put there deliberately by Apple. Compare that to a Samsung device, where you will be getting stuff put there by Samsung (which you might agree with and want) plus random stuff put there by carriers (which you almost certainly don't want).
It only matters if you are interested in discussing the amount of control carriers are able to exert over manufacturers, and whether companies are willing to compromise their design vision to satisfy carriers.
The entire point of the OP is to that Samsung has a problem with crapware that is not under their control. Regardless of whether you think Apple's pre-installed apps are "crap", it is entirely under their control to remove them — meaning they are in a more flexible position than Samsung.
Again, not relevant to you as a consumer. Only relevant if you wish to take part in this discussion.
There's stuff wrong with iOS, sure, but Apple keeping the shit that carriers want to install off the phone is one thing they've done brillianty.
I own an S4 and if this policy stays it'll be the last Samsung phone I bought.
Optus in Australia adds a lot of extra crud - default homepage, bookmarks, contacts into the iPhone, special categories in settings....
Why can't Apple let iOS users use the underlying universal, open protocols directly to do file transfers (data export) without installing a hodgepodge of third party apps which barely do the job?
You could argue Pizza Hut is the only pizza that Galaxy users will ever need. You could also argue that posting to Facebook and Twitter are the only means of data export that iOS users will ever need. You could also make a fool of yourself by making such arguments.
For Pizza Hut: (a) very odious, because it's pure marketing, irrelevant to the normal use of the device, and adds no useful functionality, since most users probably don't want a Pizza Hut bookmark, or could easily add one if they did; (b) requires switching completely to a new browser; (c) none, since a user is very unlikely to accidentally delete the bookmark and then be at a loss for how I get it back.
For Apple apps: (a) not much, since the apps are well designed and using Apple services with Apple's phone is a normal use case that applies to most users; (b) generally can be entirely avoided by moving to a folder, although it isn't always possible to replicate their functionality in third party apps, which is unfortunate (the previous inability to do so with Newsstand is essentially an implementation defect, since it was treated as a folder itself); (c) some, since although all apps ought to be redownloadable from the App Store, system apps are sort of a holdover from the original iPhone OS, and most new Apple apps have been put on the App Store, even things like iBooks.
Neither situation is great, but there's a big difference.
I guess so. I'm not sure they have as much leverage as Apple did with the iPhone. (Fun aside: Verizon was Apple's first choice for a launch carrier, but Verizon balked at the level of control they wanted over the device. Well, that and the cut of the monthly data plan fee.)
Edit: "UPDATED 26 September: Samsung has told SlashGear that Galaxy S III users should ensure their phone is running the latest software as this resolves any issues:
'We would like to assure our customers that the recent security issue concerning the GALAXY S III has already been resolved through a software update. We recommend all GALAXY S III customers to download the latest software update, which can be done quickly and easily via the Over-The-Air (OTA) service.'
Question: Is this OTA Update depending on whether providers let those updates through?
Along with #1 and this article, I'm seriously baffled that any company can be this incompetent.
(Kinda Suprise banned in the US)
Technically Kit-Kats aren't chocolate.
The Germans refer to vegetable fat-based cocoa mixes as glazed fat, the French mockingly call them brown margarine.
But under a controversial European Parliament ruling, vegetable fat mixes are permitted to be sold as family milk chocolate or house chocolate.
Never had the second problem.