HTC Removes Many of Its Android Apps From the Play Store (androidpolice.com) 20
A total of 14 HTC apps have been removed from the Play Store in the last three months. "Looking at the latest HTC Corporation activity in App Brain, we can see that the Sense Home launcher and contacts app People were unpublished just this month," reports Android Police. "12 more apps, including Calendar, Dot View, and Speak suffered a similar fate in February, while the Mail app that went and then returned is once again conspicuous by its absence." From the report: A few of the unpublished apps hadn't been updated in months, so it's likely they simply weren't being used or supported any longer and therefore had no reason to still be on the Play Store. However, apps like Mail, Contacts, and People are supposedly key alternative apps that come preinstalled on HTC devices, so it's a little strange to see those removed.
It's not clear exactly why this is happening, but there are a few possible reasons. HTC's smartphone business hasn't been doing all that well in recent years, and supporting a bunch of apps that few people are using doesn't make much sense. That said, there are still plenty more apps from the Taiwanese company still live on the Play Store. Perhaps the new phones HTC plans to launch in 2019 will ship with Android One, thus eliminating the need for its own stock apps altogether.
It's not clear exactly why this is happening, but there are a few possible reasons. HTC's smartphone business hasn't been doing all that well in recent years, and supporting a bunch of apps that few people are using doesn't make much sense. That said, there are still plenty more apps from the Taiwanese company still live on the Play Store. Perhaps the new phones HTC plans to launch in 2019 will ship with Android One, thus eliminating the need for its own stock apps altogether.
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Since there's no version of QNX for phones, you're asking too much.
Now go crawl back down the stairs and finish your mom's yogurt smoothie.
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I realize they weren't very popular, but you seem to have missed BlackBerry 10 phones, which ran QNX. Still the best smartphone experience I've had, at least in the "core" apps... Hub was amazing and worked really well.
Disclaimer: I worked for BlackBerry during the BB10 era, but left before they switched to Android devices.
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Well then whip our your BB10.
Oh yea. You're with the government, right?
Sorry, I would not have included these in the consumer phone universe. Ever.
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I was a keen HTC user - until the bloatware overwhelmed me.
Bloatware is NOT making life easier. If we want apps, we will get apps, "free" or otherwise from app makers. Apps from phone manufacturers are the work of the devil. We do not want anything to do with them (And that goes for Google and Samsung too).
Manufacturers: I wont buy a new phone unless it has an unlocked boot loader. I know your sales are in hundreds of millions, but you could have sold one more :-)
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HTC isn't all bad. In fact, you can get a key and unlock the bootloader, then use Sunshine to get full s-off status. Plus, you can use alternative ROMs like LineageOS, or stick with the current one and use Magisk for a systemless root so you can have root and Google Pay.
Other phone makers don't even allow you to unlock the bootloader at all. Huawei explicitly blocked this, and Samsung with non-Exynos CPUs is similar. Without root, you have no control of what runs on your phone, and what apps can send wh
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I've loved my HTC devices since the Hero, and my Desire and all the One devices I've owned since they started making them. Even before, with different Windows mobile devices when they supported exchange activesync and before that with the Compaq iPAQ.
Nowadays, I'm looking down at my U11 and fear that this is the final HTC for me as none of the newer models have had any wow factor. The loss of the 3.5mm jack has meant a slew of cost to get changed to bluetooth devices and all the other things sorted (And eve
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I'm with you. From the G1 to the Sensation 4G, M7, M8, and now the U11. It's not just the flaky software, with Android 8.whatever just not very reliable on this phone, but having crunched the screen corner and asking about repair, I got a disturbing response from Customer Service, essentially 'won't know how much until you send it in', and 'won;t know how long until you send it in'. The many horror stories of months waiting for repair, demanding a solution, and getting the phone returned not just unrepaired
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Surprisingly this is my second U11, I got my screen replaced and found out that the device wouldn't be water proof after, so sent it back to their authorised repair centre here and they replaced the phone for $50, took 48 hours at the repair centre. It took longer for the couriers to pick it up from the repair centre and get it back to me than it did to get it replaced.
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Woot. lucky you.
When was that?
what a life we are living (Score:2)
Android One (Score:2)
"Perhaps the new phones HTC plans to launch in 2019 will ship with Android One, thus eliminating the need for its own stock apps altogether."
what does this have to do with Android One? These standard apps have been available for ever, just for some reason most get replaced by a worse version.
i'd say the reason is they finally came to their senses that it's just not worth having to maintain these bunch of little apps yourself.
Apps from manufacturers and carriers (Score:4, Interesting)
Has ANYONE ever appreciated a single one of these? Poorly conceived, never updated.
HTC is terrible, doesn't care about security (Score:2)
They have updated my phone's security updates ONCE since then. I'm currently on June 1, 2018 security updates. Thanks for caring about our security HTC, such a "great" company.
They have stated Pie is coming in "Q2", which I have a hard time believing. Even if they do update my phone to Pie, will they give us frequent security updates? Probably not, so they should just quit making phones.