Consumerist: Angry Letter to Verizon re: Bloatware

[A.Nonymous]

before you bitch about using battery, most of the bloatware apps dont use ANY battery at all. They are annoying yes, but dont hurt the battery

Stole what I was going to say. Yes, it would be nice to have the option to remove the bloatware apps. No argument there. However, if you're not using them, they have no impact on battery life at all or a negligible one at the very least. You have to use them to have them impact battery life and if you're using them they're not bloatware are they? My complaint is that people complain too much.

 

[Bing]

Redaction fail. They took out his last name in the first line, but included it at the bottom.

Gawker is like TMZ: claiming to be media, really just a bunch of idiots.

 

[euph_22]

I think his complaints are pretty legit. I can easily name at least ten apps i would remove if i could (without rooting):

Amazon mp3
App Sharing (i can just tell whoever to search the market.)
FM Radio
Footprints
Friendstream
Google Search
Latitude
My Verizon Mobile
Peep
Skype Mobile

others:
Talk
Teeter
and VZW Navigator

i dont need this crap in my applications list, on my phone, or anywhere near me. the icons are more of an inconvenience than anything, getting in the way and taking up space, but still..
..we do pay lots of money for not only the phone, but the service as well.

i'm taking Tim's side on this one.

So you can pay an extra $10 a month to offset the lost revenue. The marginal profit for cellphone/mobile service is quite small. Every dime they can monetize some other way is less money I have to spend and/or more money they can put into improving their service.

And Google Search and FM Radio, for example, are needed. Otherwise there is nothing for the search button to DO when you press it, and the typical user wants/needs a search option out of the box. And without the FM Radio firmware, the radio hardware would be completely useless. I for one don't want to pay for hardware I can't use.

You have 700+ mb for apps, before you even start moving them to the SD card/other partition on internal NAND. Is the 50mb or so (atmost) the bloatware uses really ruining your device?

Ok, I think it'd be good if you can delete the really unnecesary programs (Amazon, vzw nav, city id, etc). It'd probably wouldn't lose vzw much money. Anyone who cares enough to uninstall amazon (for example) probably wouldn't use it either way. But if it's a choice between the bloatware or the extra cost, I choose the bloatware.

 

[Andoug]

I dunno. I kinda think outta sight outta mind. I haven't seen a CityId pop up since the initial trial period ended. Who cares if it's lurking in the app drawer it isn't doing anything to bother me.

 

[FramCire]

I dunno. I kinda think outta sight outta mind. I haven't seen a CityId pop up since the initial trial period ended. Who cares if it's lurking in the app drawer it isn't doing anything to bother me.

If you do care, use Launcher Pro and hide it from the app drawer.

I have hidden all the junk I dont want. I honestly dont notice they are there or running.

 

[Casbah]

VZW's business case for products depends on the bloat as a part of it. If they remove the bloat, so does some assumed margin of profit for the overall trend of revenue of the device. VZW and some other carriers tend to approach this with horse blinds on.

Perhaps VZW should sell a bloat-free version for $20 more

Then again, one person's bloat is another's handy app.

I like having Amazon MP3, FM radio and Google Search. The social apps (read: battery & resource sucking apps) can all fall off a cliff.

Just like junkmail from the postal service. That's a large part of how they make the money to keep going. Of course we could always let them cancel Sat. service and start paying $1 for a first class letter. (I'll just recycle the junkmail...simple)

 

[bhill]

Gawker is like TMZ: claiming to be media, really just a bunch of idiots.

That may be, but Consumerist is not part of Gawker. They are actually owned by Consumer Reports now.

 

[NoShftShck16]

Dont have much to say on it but god do I hate CityID. Thank god for root.

 

[thelastdraco]

I think his complaints are pretty legit. I can easily name at least ten apps i would remove if i could (without rooting):

Amazon mp3
App Sharing (i can just tell whoever to search the market.)
FM Radio
Footprints
Friendstream
Google Search
Latitude
My Verizon Mobile
Peep
Skype Mobile

others:
Talk
Teeter
and VZW Navigator

i dont need this crap in my applications list, on my phone, or anywhere near me. the icons are more of an inconvenience than anything, getting in the way and taking up space, but still..
..we do pay lots of money for not only the phone, but the service as well.

i'm taking Tim's side on this one.

good call on the list. i don't really care about having these applications but when they start up randomly on their own every 5 seconds, that's where i draw the line. fortunately we have unrevoked^3 + titanium backup for matters like these.

 

[A.Nonymous]

good call on the list. i don't really care about having these applications but when they start up randomly on their own every 5 seconds, that's where i draw the line. fortunately we have unrevoked^3 + titanium backup for matters like these.

You realize that when they "start up randomly on their own" it does not affect your phone's performance in any noticeable way shape or form right?

 

[plim]

i don't mind the pre-loading of bloatware as much, but i hate that amazon mp3, skype mobile, vz navigator, flicker, fm radio, friend stream, peep, and visual voice mail auto-start on boot.

i know (in my mind) that it *shouldn't* affect cpu/battery life, but who knows for real, right? =)

btw, i presume that half of the bloatware is from htc (e.g. friendstream, fm radio, peep, flicker), and half from verizon (vz navigator, skype mobile, amazon mp3)

 

[cpupeli1]

You realize that when they "start up randomly on their own" it does not affect your phone's performance in any noticeable way shape or form right?

Yea besides battery life being even worse.... Of course they don't cause the phone to lag or delay in any fashion [I would hope not with the specs of the Incredible] But they do drain your battery, period.

Disallowing consumers to uninstall these apps simply sends the wrong message IMHO. If cityID was a trial, then allow us to get rid of it when the 'trial' is over rather than a constant prompt for the paid version. Bloatware has been around yes, but in this day in age with smart phones I would like Verizon/HTC to allow the capabilities of my phone to be used....a.k.a let me uninstall what I want.


But yes, root is where its at

 

[A.Nonymous]

You're incorrect. They don't drain your battery. I rooted and removed anything and everything that could be called bloatware. No CityID, Peep, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, etc..... My battery life is the same as before. If you use an app like Watchdog, you can see that these apps are "cached" in most cases so they're literally not using any memory at all. I agree that you should have the option to uninstall those apps, but having them on the phone doesn't impact the phone's performance in any meaningful way.

 

[cpupeli1]

Hmmm...really? I haven't done a detailed comparison for before/after I rooted nor have I tried Watchdog. But looking at running services and seeing that they are indeed running, that doesn't mean they are using any memory? Even if it is a small amount, that wouldn't in turn impact battery life?

 

[A.Nonymous]

Hmmm...really? I haven't done a detailed comparison for before/after I rooted nor have I tried Watchdog. But looking at running services and seeing that they are indeed running, that doesn't mean they are using any memory? Even if it is a small amount, that wouldn't in turn impact battery life?

They're not running. They're cached. Now I've removed most of them off my phone, but I still have My Verizon because I like to be able to check where I am as far as minutes/data and I've got Amazon MP3 because I use it. Currently My Verizon is running as a service (not cached as I thought, but I know some of the other bloatware apps do run chached) and it's using 0.1% of my CPU. In comparison, I'm currently playing some music and my music player is using 4.4% of my CPU. GMail is also running in the background using 0.0% of the processor. Technically My Verizon is using processor time, but 0.1% is so negligible it's basically nothing. I don't see Amazon MP3 running on my phone at all, but I may be blind.

 

[cpupeli1]

They're not running. They're cached. Now I've removed most of them off my phone, but I still have My Verizon because I like to be able to check where I am as far as minutes/data and I've got Amazon MP3 because I use it. Currently My Verizon is running as a service and it's using 0.1% of my CPU. In comparison, I'm currently playing some music and my music player is using 4.4% of my CPU. GMail is also running in the background using 0.0% of the processor. Technically My Verizon is using processor time, but 0.1% is so negligible it's basically nothing. I don't see Amazon MP3 running on my phone at all, but I may be blind.

Well everything is off my phone as well. If those % reflect their use then that really exemplifies how awful our battery is wow that is disappointing. I had been referring to running services and seeing Gmail for example using 2.2 mb or Messages transaction service using 7.5 mb.

Either way...has anyone found out if Verizon answered this 'Timothy' ?

 

[A.Nonymous]

I'm running a custom ROM, so you mileage may vary. I'd highly recommend Watchdog. The free version is sufficient for my needs. It monitors what apps are running, their memory usage and CPU usuage. It'll generate alerts based on threshholds you can set up that tell you when an app is using too much memory. You can use it to force stop apps manually if you want as well.

 

[howarmat]

You're incorrect. They don't drain your battery. I rooted and removed anything and everything that could be called bloatware. No CityID, Peep, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, etc..... My battery life is the same as before. If you use an app like Watchdog, you can see that these apps are "cached" in most cases so they're literally not using any memory at all. I agree that you should have the option to uninstall those apps, but having them on the phone doesn't impact the phone's performance in any meaningful way.

bingo, they dont use battery! everyone sing along

 

[cpupeli1]

I'm running a custom ROM, so you mileage may vary. I'd highly recommend Watchdog. The free version is sufficient for my needs. It monitors what apps are running, their memory usage and CPU usuage. It'll generate alerts based on threshholds you can set up that tell you when an app is using too much memory. You can use it to force stop apps manually if you want as well.

I just installed it, it looks good/useful. But it says Watchdog is using more of my CPU than the Android System? I don't have real time CPU enabled either.

 

[Fantasma]

F it... All the bloatware pays for me to have an Incredible phone like this... Sponsors made this phone happen...

Virtous removed it all so I could care less.

 

[A.Nonymous]

I just installed it, it looks good/useful. But it says Watchdog is using more of my CPU than the Android System? I don't have real time CPU enabled either.

That's because it's actively running in the foreground when you're looking at it. Any app that's actively running the foreground is going to use more memory than an app that's running in the background. I wondered about this myself at first before it hit me.

 

[cpupeli1]

That's because it's actively running in the foreground when you're looking at it. Any app that's actively running the foreground is going to use more memory than an app that's running in the background.

good to know

 

[Mr. Incredible]

Memory does NOT equal battery drain. Your phone's memory has to be "refreshed" at a specific interval even if it's 100% empty. The only additional drain related to the memory is reading or modifying the contents.

If your use pattern causes many programs to frequently be cached and then retrieved, you will start seeing both a CPU use and battery hit.

 

[Markus729]

I think his complaints are pretty legit. I can easily name at least ten apps i would remove if i could (without rooting):

Amazon mp3
App Sharing (i can just tell whoever to search the market.)
FM Radio
Footprints
Friendstream
Google Search
Latitude
My Verizon Mobile
Peep
Skype Mobile

others:
Talk
Teeter
and VZW Navigator

i dont need this crap in my applications list, on my phone, or anywhere near me. the icons are more of an inconvenience than anything, getting in the way and taking up space, but still..
..we do pay lots of money for not only the phone, but the service as well.

i'm taking Tim's side on this one.

These are the ones I want off, too.

 

[isoelectric]

I suggest people run System Monitor or the like to see how much battery these apps are using up. Hint, it's nothing