South Korean Court Rules That Phone Bloatware Must Be Deletable 138
_0x783czar writes "Starting this April, South Korea will require all phone vendors to allow pre-installed bloatware to be uninstalled. That's right, they will be able to get rid of all that pesky software without having to root their phones. According to press release by the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning, 'The move aims to rectify an abnormal practice that causes inconvenience to smartphone users and causes unfair competition among industry players.' They hope this will also increase the users' data storage and battery life. From the article: 'Under the new guidelines, telcos are required to make most of their pre-installed apps deletable except for four necessary items related to Wi-Fi connectivity, near-field communication (NFC), the customer service center and the app store.' It'd be nice if similar legislation were passed in the U.S. and elsewhere."
Well that settles it (Score:5, Insightful)
The South Koreans are officially light years ahead of the US in terms of internet connectivity and smartphones.
"if similar legislation were passed in the U.S." (Score:4, Insightful)
Keep dreaming.
Bloating phones with money-making unstable privacy-invading tracking crapware is their first amendment right, and we are required to be glad for it, because it saves us the hassle of ordering our unlocked phones online.
GPE (Score:4, Insightful)
My last few phones have all been Google Play Editions, and I can't be happier.
I'd toyed with Cyanogenmod, but there's a breakeven point between the time I spend dicking with a phone to unlock and reflash it - then deal with any of the incompatibilities that come up (especially with things like NFC and cameras, as previous loading/updating Google apps), and just getting an unlocked phone for what I'd have paid my carrier for it after they sneak the actual cost into my bill.
Most people will never know. They're going to have a crazy launcher, and tons of bloat, and locked tethering, and who knows what the hell else shoehorned into their phone because AT&T-MobRision made a deal with ESPN.
Re:Nonsense. (Score:4, Insightful)
Wait, how do they make more money with bloatware?
Everybody ignores the bloatware, installs the apps they want, disables the paid bloatware ones.
They waste money with bloatware, piss off users, slow down their updates, and cause people to hack their phones.
Dear South Korea: Can we borrow your judges?