Motorola Spoiled a Good Budget Phone With Bloatware (theverge.com) 56
Motorola's 2024 Moto G Power impresses with its soft-touch back and contoured edges at a $300 price point, despite an underwhelming camera and LCD panel. Except one thing: the bloatware. The Verge: Scroll through the app drawer and you'll see a handful of automatically downloaded "folders." They are not folders; they are apps. I first encountered them on last year's Moto G Stylus 5G, and I hate them very much. There are three main offenders -- Shopping, Entertainment, and GamesHub -- and each of these apps acts as a little hub. Icons for apps that you have legitimately downloaded will appear in the corresponding "folder." You'll also find tons of other suggested apps to download -- pages and pages of them! Apps as far as the eye can see!
Dismissing the suggested apps section replaces it with a "Discover" section. In the shopping app, it invites you to "Unlock the power of shopping" with links to buy stuff like kitschy Easter decor from TJ Maxx. Mercifully, there's a toggle to hide this section. These apps are all made by a company called Swish, and you can't opt out of downloading any of them during the setup process. You can (and should!) opt out of downloading a third-party lock screen from a different service called Glance. The more I dig into the software on this phone, the more I hate it. The preinstalled weather app is festooned with ads and even more suggested apps, plus pithy insights like "Gotta love air conditioning at these high levels of humidity." If you tap the option to remove ads, a pop-up asks you to pay $4 for 1Weather Pro.
Dismissing the suggested apps section replaces it with a "Discover" section. In the shopping app, it invites you to "Unlock the power of shopping" with links to buy stuff like kitschy Easter decor from TJ Maxx. Mercifully, there's a toggle to hide this section. These apps are all made by a company called Swish, and you can't opt out of downloading any of them during the setup process. You can (and should!) opt out of downloading a third-party lock screen from a different service called Glance. The more I dig into the software on this phone, the more I hate it. The preinstalled weather app is festooned with ads and even more suggested apps, plus pithy insights like "Gotta love air conditioning at these high levels of humidity." If you tap the option to remove ads, a pop-up asks you to pay $4 for 1Weather Pro.
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Not if they don't want to cut Apple in on their revenue. You want to do business in that neighborhood, you've got to give the boss his share.
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Both stores charge a 30% cut but iOS accounts for 68% of mobile app spending so no surprise why develops are always focused there first.
Simply put, iPhone users are more willing to actually pay for apps.
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Both stores charge a 30% cut
Implying that there's only two (one for Apple, one for Android). You can load Android apps from a lot of places. Many of which have different terms than Google Play.
but iOS accounts for 68% of mobile app spending
I suspect that anyone who thinks it's a split between only two app stores hasn't done very serious market research to support that number.
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Yes you can load alternative app stores but that is not the question, the questions is what actually happens and what reality looks like and in that worls the Google Play Store is by far the dominant app store with only Samsung coming in a very distant second and that is only due to it being preinstalled on all their phones:
https://www.theverge.com/2023/... [theverge.com]
The data on which store makes the most money either per user or any metric is widely available and has been known for years. On both app purchases, down
That's why its a budget phone... (Score:5, Informative)
The bloatware subsidises the price, wait for a third party rom to become available with all this junk removed.
Re:That's why its a budget phone... (Score:5, Interesting)
Or for not much more money than this phones $300 price tag, or any at all if you find a sale you can just buy a Pixel 6A or 7A which is gonna be better on every single front.
Re:That's why its a budget phone... (Score:4, Informative)
They sold Motorola to Lenovo a few years back.
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What the heck are you talking about? The Pixel's camera is widely considered one of the best on the market. We've had three of them in my family and the only point you make that I'd agree with is the subpar speakers.
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My Pixel2 works fine. Not much bloatware. Coat me $120 with 128GB when it was 3 years old, unused. Camera good, sound bad. Replaced the battery after 3 years for $60. I'll replace the battery in another 3 years if it needs it. I'd like a telephoto lens, but that's the only drawback.
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I also like the One+ N30 for $299. It has decent memory, storage, and cameras. The battery lasts me two days, and a week on standby without calls.
https://www.oneplus.com/us/one... [oneplus.com]
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Interesting, I might give One+ a shot again but last non-pixel phone I had was I think it was the Nord 200(?) and it was pretty, well, not great. Hardware was nice but laggy as hell and they give you a 90fps screen but nowhere near enough CPU power to run it. And the camera was pretty bad too. Be nice if it sounds like they improved their budget option here.
Re:That's why its a budget phone... (Score:5, Informative)
The Moto G series didn't do this before. I liked them because they were okay phones with a fairly clean Android install and great battery life. They included some junk like wallpapers, their tutorials, and "dolby atmos" audio tuning, but no adware / third party sponsored crap. Unfortunately it looks like they're going the Samsung route now.
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If the phone can have an unlocked bootloader and LineageOS installed, or all the bloatware actually removed and something like Nova Launcher installed, it might be decent.
This sort of reminds me of the PC days, where they would come chock full of stuff, because the third parties helped subsidize the cost of the machine. Except with a Windows CD, one could wipe that crap and install clean, but a factory reinstall would bring that stuff back.
Of course, it would be awesome to be able to have a phone as hardwa
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The review I read said they could be removed.
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Except most consumers don't know how to do that.
bloat (Score:1)
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Choose? From TFS:
you can't opt out of downloading any of them during the setup process
It appears that you cannot choose not to.
It might be possible to use the trick I used for my flip phone. The cellular coverage at my home varies from crap to nonexistent. So when I set up my phone, it was unable to contact its app store, prompt me for my personal information and download crap. Now, forever more, there's a notice (buried deep in the bottom of my messages) asking me to please visit the store. But having initially configured the phone without setting up the requisite logon, i
Motorola G Stylus 2024 (Score:2)
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its a big part of how they hit the target price. I mean it sucks, but if you want phone with all these features, and you don't want to pay for them... this is what you get.
If you buy an unlocked phone (Score:2)
If it's a carrier thing they might be locked to the phone, I once had a bubble bobble clone marked as a "system application" so I couldn't uninstall it. Real pain because it was a cheap phone and I needed the space it was eating up.
But these days even pre-paid companies seem to let you uninstall apps. Not sure if the FTC yelled at them or what but they seem to have stopped marking crap a
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But these days even pre-paid companies seem to let you uninstall apps.
Technically apps that are pre-installed on the read-only (at runtime) firmware image only get hidden, not actually freeing up any space.
BonziBuddy (Score:2)
Listening to your awful list, I was half expecting you to mention BonziBuddy.
Here's hoping ... (Score:2)
I really liked the last Moto G I had, and I'm overdue for a new phone. If this new one ends up being upgradeable to LineageOS in the near future, it seems like a good deal. I'll be able to dump Google again, get rid of Motorola's bloat, and have decent hardware for a not-bad price. Fingers crossed...
This is bad. (Score:2)
I've been using Motorola for my Smartphones since the G2, something like 10 years ago. I've alwas liked the fair budget options and the clean initial setup that was close to stock Android and only came with some really good and useful Moto stuff like the radio, Moto Actions and a quite neat camera app.
That Motorola comes up with a model that has shovelware on it is a first AFAICT. Don't like it. They've been bloating their lineup in recent years, I suspected that was also due to lack of parts and having to
Settle down, a little, TFA (Score:2)
Talking about the weather app in TFA (emphasis mine):
The “About” section in the weather app says it comes from a service called OneLouder. OneLouder, it turns out, is owned by Pinsight media, which was formerly owned by Sprint and now owned by a company called InMobi. To be clear, this app asks for constant access to your location. At the very least, it should be clear exactly what company you’re giving that permission to!
To be fair, a weather app needs to know where you are to be useful.
No, a weather app doesn't NEED your location (Score:3)
I tell mine where I want to see the weather at.
I keep location off almost all the time because I don't like the battery drain.
Most of the time I'm in my home city, so I don't need to update the location often at all.
At best, it's mildly convenient for a weather app to have your location.
Disable bloatware (Score:2)
You can disable bloatware apps, even ones that don't let you disable them. The trick is to connect with ADB, and then use 'disable-user' for the app, which will disable it for just one user, but you only have one user on the phone, so it's effectively the same. I used that on a Samsung a while back to disable all the Bixby junk, among other things.
Google should really crack down on making it impossible to disable apps. OK, maybe they'll insist you have a web browser, but only block disabling the current
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Which means what, exactly? Wikipedia has a number of meanings for ADB, but none of them seem remotely relevant. Remember, not everybody recognizes all of the abbreviations that get used here. Do you know without looking anything up what a LART is or a JOAT?
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You connect a USB cable from your phone to a computer. You enable USB debugging in the setup menu. You install 'adb' which is a standard android tool. Just Google "adb android" and the first 32767 hits or so will all be what you want.
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The price of privacy? (Score:2)
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You only exist to be squeezed to whatever extent they can get away with. 21st century capitalism always trends to extortion.
He protests too much? (Score:2)
From TFA:
You can uninstall all of this garbage ... But if you’re not technically savvy, you probably won’t realize you can do all of this.
So... what's the problem? Instead of spending most of the article complaining why not publish an article about how to remove the apps and clean things up, instead of just adding a one-liner at the end?
Bad quality phones of late (Score:2)
I know it's low end and all, but at this price range these phones used to be pretty solid. This one's Android Car crashes all the time and the GPS is very flaky, failing to work very often.
I'm considering switching to another brand, probably Samsung next. Or something from Apple, but those are like thieves' magnets. I went to lower end Motorolas after an armed robbery.
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I recently bought a Samsung Galaxy A15 5G and it's actually very nice even though it was only $199. It kind of hits the sweet spot as phones go from "basic" to "conspicuous consumption." 50MP camera, 5000mAh battery, 128GB storage... but the thing that got me is the OLED screen. I can't go back to a phone with an LCD screen anymore.
Okay? (Score:2)
Soooo... par for the course?
I've *always* had to nuke bloatware from my devices... this is no different. If the hardware's good (and I've had good luck with the MotoG in the past) then I can spend a few minutes cleaning things out.
Soft touch back, what for? (Score:2)
What's the point of a soft touch back? Everyone with a lick of sense will put it in a case anyway.
Can the bloat be removed? (Score:2)
Classic Android bloatware is stored in the OS image. As long as you run the vendor's OS, you cannot remove the bloat.
Pixels FTW!! (Score:2)
THIS kind of shit is why I stay with Pixel phones, and Nexus before them. They're a slightly modified AOSP withOUT any bloatware, unless of course, you consider gapps to bloatware...
$300 is not a "budget" phone (Score:2)
Mid-range, maybe.
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No. $300 is a budget phone in the modern world.
IF you consider $300 a mid-range phone then you're further behind than the telco industry.
inaccurate (Score:2)
My phone is a Moto g73 and my daughter had a newer Moto g54 Power Edition, both are nice phones with good features for their price and no bloat. But they are European version, are Motorolas sold in the US crappier?
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Yes. They're garbage.