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Android Ice Cream Sandwich To End Carrier Bloatware

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Are you frustrated with the pitiful apps included with your Android smartphone when you bring it home from Verizon or AT&T?

Too often we see great phones saddled with bloatware or as our own Sumocat calls it CRAPPS. These apps are limited trial versions or memory using apps that cannot be un-installed without rooting your phone.

Verizon loves to add golf games and the worst offender – BlockBuster for Android. We saw these apps on the Droid Bionic, and don’t expect that they will go away in Ice Cream Sandwich, but you will be able to put an end to bloatware.

This Is My Next confirms that there is a kill switch for apps built into Ice Cream Sandwich, the next version of Android.

Android Bloatware End

Ice Cream Sandwich Will Allow You To Disable Bloatware.

With this switch, you can disable any app you don’t want running on your phone. This goes from the standard Android Browser to the BlockBuster app and other bloatware.

This switch won’t remove the app from your phone, which means it still takes up memory, but it prevents the app from running and hides the icon from your App drawer.

This is a good start, but I would rather see carriers prompt you at setup to keep or remove the extra apps completely. That day is likely a long way off, so until then this will have to do.

Want to know more? Check out our full Ice Cream Sandwich Overview. The new Android 4.0 will roll out to Nexus devices soon and eventually to Gingerbread devices. Sony has pledged to upgrade GingerBread devices in 2012. Other devices may get the upgrade, but based on past delays, you might see Android 4.0 arriving on the HTC ThunderBolt at the same time Android 5.0 is announced.

Here’s a look at some pre-installed apps on the Droid Bionic.

4 Comments

4 Comments

  1. Anonymous

    10/20/2011 at 8:52 am

    Cool, so at least we can turn off the crap that is useless.

  2. Anonymous

    10/20/2011 at 2:51 pm

    A built-in app freezer! I heart you Google.

  3. JayDub

    10/26/2011 at 5:10 pm

    You should still be able to uninstall the crap you don’t wanna use & to also save memory on ” YOUR PHONE THAT I OWN Verizon” ? It’s my phone I should be able to put what I want on it not all this crap that takes up memory & stuff i’m never gonna use.

  4. Michael Frederic

    11/07/2011 at 9:50 pm

    Isn’t it illegal for providers to provide no uninstall on there bloatware, since the courts already ruled that the phones are our to do with as we wish. (root) How can they legally do this? Class action? 

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