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Android Cellphones

Epic Games' App Store Will Be Preinstalled On Millions of Android Phones (engadget.com) 39

Posted by BeauHD from the epic-partnerships dept.
Epic Games has partnered with Telefonica to pre-install its mobile game storefront on millions of Android devices. Engadget reports: As such, those who buy a phone from a Telefonica network such as O2 or Movistar in Spain, the UK, Germany and Spanish-speaking Latin America will immediately have the app, which offers access to Fortnite, Fall Guys and Rocket League Sideswipe. Epic will bring third-party games to the storefront as well, while the partners plan to offer mobile gamers on Telefonica's networks extra perks over the next year or so. Telefonica has more than 392 million customers. As such, this deal could bring Fortnite and Fall Guys to an even bigger audience.

Epic Games' App Store Will Be Preinstalled On Millions of Android Phones More | Reply

Epic Games' App Store Will Be Preinstalled On Millions of Android Phones

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  • Damn (Score:5, Insightful)

    by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Thursday December 12, 2024 @09:16PM (#65009605) Journal
    I support Epic's fight to keep smartphone platforms open. But I sure don't want their shit preinstalled on my phone.

    • Re:Damn (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Auchmithie ( 7848440 ) on Thursday December 12, 2024 @09:28PM (#65009631)
      I don't want anything not essential to be installed. Purging a new Samsung phone of crapware is not fun at all.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by dohzer ( 867770 )

        Is purging bloatware possible these days? I remember my last Samsung S6 would automatically reinstall purged apps, so I changed phone manufacturers.

        • Short Answer: Nope.

          Long Answer: The system partition is mounted read only, sparse blocks are removed (so the original filesystem data has to be reconstructed before you can edit it), and digitally signed. That pretty much means there's no option to remove anything. You can "disable" an app, but it will forever take up space on the internal storage as long as that ROM is installed. The only way to remove it is to install a new ROM that doesn't contain it. Which means, unless you have an unlockable bootload

          • You can "disable" an app, but it will forever take up space on the internal storage as long as that ROM is installed.

            In many cases the preinstalled apps are shell apps that only take up space after a background update on first boot on your phone. E.g. Facebook is "preinstalled" on my phone. The app is 450MB installed, but if I disable it (which also uninstalls any updates) I end up with an app that is only 7MB. At no time in the past decade has Facebook only been 7MB, not even the lite version.

            Not all apps take up their normal full space when they are shipped on the read only portion of the partition.

      • And yet you have a Samsung phone. Clearly you only care enough about it to put the effort into disabling it and not enough to buy a phone without crapware installed. Can't be high on your priority list.

        • I feel the same way about crapware, but the requirements I have for a phone (one of which is to easily replace the battery) left me with just the Xcover 7 as the viable choice.

          Disabling stuff on the phone is no different from all the times I used nlite to strip Windows from unwanted bits. Disabling is still good, even if files occupy space on the large enough storage.

          By the time LineageOS has an image for this phone, factory support has likely ended and I need to upgrade its OS to LineageOS anyway.

      • Some kind of app store or other software repository is essential. I imagine that this one is in addition to Google Play, which at least gives people another option.

        Yes it would be better if it was fDroid. Yes it would be better if they had a more comprehensive system that let you easily choose between repositories. I'm not delighted by this solution, but it's better than just having Google Play.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by EvilSS ( 557649 )
      This was the core of their lawsuit against Google. They tried this with OnePlus (I believe, it's not important) and Google stuck their noses in and carrot/sticked OnePlus into killing the deal.

    • I support Epic's fight to keep smartphone platforms open. But I sure don't want their shit preinstalled on my phone.

      So disable the app when you get it. It's easy. The reality is preinstalled software is a thing, there's no reason to be any more angry because Epic is doing it.

      • Why do you complain about the poo in your food? Plenty of people eat much worse and so there's no point complaining

        Just bend over and take it.

      • Samsung makes most of its preinstalled crapware un-disable-able. For example, the Samsung versions of Messages, Calendar and Camera cannot be removed, cannot be disabled, and refuse to let you remove the permissions they "need".

    • Not sure the temperature here on Slashdot right now, but this is something I like about my iPhones. Sure you get their embedded stuff but it's VERY non-intrusive.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Dusanyu ( 675778 )
      Epic don't care about openness there fight is and always has been about money. At least Apple is honest about being greedy bastards. While Epic will cry about openness than buy out Studios and shout large swaths of the user base of it's games out. But I agree Pre installed applications can die in a fire. But let's not laud epic for "Fighting for openness," because This is is how much epic cares about openness. https://www.epicgames.com/help... [epicgames.com]

      • The problem with Epic is they try to position their fights about being pro-consumer when it they are really pro-Epic. For example, one of their major problems with Google/Steam/Apple is that those stores get to set the developer's cut. Epic wanted those stores to lower the cut. On the Epic Store, Epic gets to set the developer's cut but that's not hypocrisy at all.

        I think it was the Apple lawsuit where they got emails from Valve/Epic. Epic wanted Valve to lower their Steam revenue cut from 30% to help Epic

    • We've come full circle. Epic demonstrating that the only reason they are upset that Apple is charging everyone 30% is because EPIC wants to charge everyone 30%.

  • Need more details (Score:3)

    by ddtmm ( 549094 ) on Thursday December 12, 2024 @09:32PM (#65009635)
    I’m not opposed to the installation of an app that I can uninstall myself, but I’d love to know what they will be charging third-parties to sell through their store. And I’m more curious to see how Tim is doing with this. I’d love to see the look on his face..

  • It will be preinstalled (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Thursday December 12, 2024 @09:44PM (#65009649)

    whether you want it or not.

    Because it's not your phone, it's someone else's platform to make money off of you that you pay for.

    • Oh fuck off. It's yours to do with what you want. Including disabling any pre-shipped software. You're pretty high and mighty but I will bet you both kidneys that you're not running Linux From Scratch at home and therefore a wholly dependent on someone bundling software together to get your devices to do the minimum you expect them to do.

      Crying about "not your computer" simply because suddenly there's an app that doesn't suit you is childish. There's phones out there without any 3rd party stuff installed. W

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mjwx ( 966435 )

      whether you want it or not.

      Because it's not your phone, it's someone else's platform to make money off of you that you pay for.

      And this is reason #439 why I pay for my phone outright. I don't need to spend £1,000 on a basic model phone when the one I bought for £250 does everything it does. More in the case of a £1,000 Apple product.

      This is only applicable to handsets you buy through the telco, in countries that aren't the US there's almost no restriction on where you can buy a handset because you can connect an unlocked handset to any network. Also telcos can screw with/restrict updates from the manufacturer,

      • Correct me if I'm wrong but generally the lower priced phones have more crapware installed because the price is lower. There's always a catch somewhere. Personally I find buying a 1 or 2 year old model outright is a better strategy.

        in countries that aren't the US there's almost no restriction on where you can buy a handset because you can connect an unlocked handset to any network.

        That's not true. The main issue is whether the phone is either GSM or CDMA. The US has both GSM and CDMA phones but Europe is mainly GSM. Parts of Asia use CDMA so those travelers also may have problems in Europe. The second issue is whether the phone is unlocked. In the US, peop

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by unrtst ( 777550 )

          The US has both GSM and CDMA phones ...

          Feel free to correct me, but I don't think that's really true any longer. AFAIK, AT&T and Verizon are LTE/5G networks only, and T-Mobile is mostly LTE/5G with a small slice of spectrum still going to GSM (1900 MHz). Some of the smaller / regional networks may still do CDMA (Ex. UScellular), but the vast majority is LTE/5G.

          In the US, people can buy unlocked phones; however, that is up the individual US carriers especially if the customer did not buy the phone outright from the carrier.

          Somewhat true, but it's not as bad as that sounds. Carriers are required to unlock phones (for free?) if any of these is true:
          * device is paid off
          * device is bought outright at start o

  • Don't android phones come preloaded with enough spam? Please, god, we DON'T need more.
    • Google Pixels don't allow it.

      • True, but sadly that means you have to give Google your money.

      • Google Pixels have their own crapware. For example, there's a preinstalled app specifically for Pixel Buds, which I don't now and never will own in the future. I was able to uninstall it via an adb shell, but without doing that, it stays even if you never need it.

  • But this kind of shit is exactly why I was perfectly happy to have Apple have the power to tell devs what they could and couldn't do. Because while Apple is a profit-oriented company, so are they, and the difference is that its profit incentive is best served by ensuring consumers really enjoy the overall experience of using their devices, and for most people, the convenience of preinstalled bloatware is far outweighed by the annoyance of it.

  • Fortunately I will not be affected (Score:3)

    by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Friday December 13, 2024 @06:05AM (#65010185)

    I buy my phones, no crappy images installed. Condolences to everybody getting more ensittification by this.

    • My heart bleeds to all the people who need to long press an icon, click info, and then click disable. How will they cope! We should classify this among the most heinous crimes of humanity. /s

      Also bullshit, unless you attached your phone to your computer via USB cable to side load an app store you definitely brought a phone with crappy images installed. You're just okay with it because it involves an app you happen to want to use like the Play Store.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        As usual, you are without insight. No, I do not have a phone that was installed form a crappy image. I have some annoying requests by google to log in (which I ignore), but that is it.

  • Why not sell a computer with a hundred different DRM/Sales systems--each compromising security in their own way.

  • Now i will switch the phone carrier!

    Honestly, i buy contract free phones since ~2004 now and i never regretted it.

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