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Google could solve a lot of storage issues just by not allowing device manufacturers to lock apps so they can't be uninstalled. There is a huge amount of bloat
by Saris 5y ago
Google could solve a lot of storage issues just by not allowing device manufacturers to lock apps so they can't be uninstalled. There is a huge amount of bloat on modern android phones and tablets that cannot be removed.
- ShroudedNight 5y agoIt's particularly frustrating that the lower-end the device, the worse this problem ends up. Someone who can only afford a phone with 16 GiB storage then ends up only have 2-4 GiB for discretionary use because of all the hostile shit the device manufacturer / carrier baked in to the system partition.
- spicybright 5y agoIf my car got 30 miles to the gallon, but required 10 of those miles to power the alternator, I wouldn't be able to advertise 30 MPG. It's a bit surprising phones can get away with this.
- namibj 5y agoThat wording is broken; not using a backwards unit like MPG (but rather one like the European l/100km (could also say "cl/km")) would make it much easier (the travel distance is typically a given, and the frequency/expense of tank stops what's being optimized).
- spicybright 5y agoIf you want to get pedantic, ok, but I think my point was communicated clearly enough. I'm not talking about accurate car nomenclature here.
- namibj 5y agoOh, I'm not faulting you for the mistake. I'm just using it as an example for why/how MPG is a bad unit for what it's typically used for.
- jsnell 5y agoIf you allowed deleting the pre-installed apps entirely, rather than just disabling them, the device could no longer be factory-reset to the original state. That's not acceptable.
- ape4 5y agoOr omit crapware from the original state.
- Arrath 5y agoWhy couldn't the carrier keep images of stock configurations and the phone download them OTA when factory reset? Conversely, maybe I don't want those pre-installed apps in the first place.
- jsnell 5y agoThen the ability to factory reset the phone would depend on having working network connectivity, on the manufacturer of the phone actually hosting those factory reset images, and on them continuing to do so indefinitely. It would stop being a feature you can actually rely on.
- btdmaster 5y agoThe APK bundle could definitely be kept in the factory image while still allowing true removal, there's no reason it is done this way.
- Anon1096 5y agoThat's effectively what disabling apps on Android does already. All that is left is a stub in the rom.
- btdmaster 5y agoI'm almost sure that that is not the case -- for example, it explicitly asks whether to uninstall updates only when those are installed. Though I would love to know what the technical details actually are.
- mschuster91 5y agoAgreed for "bloatware" apps, but allowing users to delete actual system apps is ... a bad idea. Just imagine your kid deleting the "Phone" app, for example. And allowing vendors to flag apps as "not deletable" will only lead to them flagging their own bloatware apps again.
- Saris 5y agoYeah I just mean all the user apps that some people may not use; Social media apps is a huge one.
- perryizgr8 5y agoGoogle could also solve these issue by unlocking its own apps, so they can be removed. For example, I have absolutely no use for google assistant or chrome or duo, yet they take up insane amount of space on my phone.