#1 is not a GS3 problem, it is a carrier problem specific to Vodafone, which had a marketing deal with Pizza Hut at the time of the GS3's release. Other carriers did not forcibly include undeletable Pizza Hut bookmarks.
I don't like it any more than you, but to Samsung and its investors, the undeletable Pizza Hut bookmark is a feature. Not only does it generate additional revenue with little additional design time, but it also indicates that Samsung has a healthy and attractive business in which other businesses would like to participate.
Somehow I find it hard to interpret an undeletable Pizza Hut bookmark as a sign of a healthy business.
It has the familiar smell of desperation to monetize everything. Unless of course Samsung is striving to be known as the Ryanair of consumer electronics.
We blame Samsung. Most users will just deal with it. Few and far between care enough about crapware to abandon a phone manufacturer over it (assuming they even blame Samsung for it at all).
Marketing people from major companies use a Samsung phone and sees the bookmark will think "I wish our brand was there. How do we reach out to the carrier or Samsung to put our brand there as well?"
a few weeks later in a meeting with a carrier or Samsung, "Yes, we can put a bookmark there for X dollars. However if you want it to be undeletable, you can pay 2X dollars" or "Pizza Hut is paying us 2X dollars for that and we don't want to put more than one there, so you need to outbid pizza hut for that spot."
Really, I think the same. Comparing just a browser bookmark which doesn't always come in your way with an ever intrusive app and loving crapware just because it's from their loved company? I mean, I knew Apple fans are dense, but this is excessive.
Whatever. I just can't argue with a person that believes an ad is the same as a built-in functionality. I can't understand what kind of logic and thinking is going in your head, really.
How about we call it what it is. Advertising. However you frame it, it's advertising. Is it useful? Who cares. It's advertising. Order a pizza using the app and your telco gets paid. Twice. Being able to remove Apple's built in apps is besides the point. Yes, it's mildly irritating that this can't be done, but it's not the same thing. Pretending otherwise is disingenuous.
Aah. You don't pay to come here, and it's not your property. It's a public forum, which by definition has comments from people which you might or might not like :). Here, only the comments which public on the whole like should be there - and that is already the case - if majority doesn't like it, it'll automatically get suppressed. A phone is a different thing - it's a personal property. Only the things you like should be there on your phone. If that's not the case, it's bad - now favoring one more intrusive crapware and cursing a less intrusive one because of a bias, is bad.
Anyway, you completely missed the point of my comment :).
no one has paid apple to do that. It is not an advertisement. It is more of like internet explorer built in. Whereas undeletable advertisement bookmark is like having a unchangable wallpaper by some third party.
No. Undeleteable advertisement bookmark is just like an undeleteable advertisement bookmark. It's NOT like an unchangeable wallpaper. Bookmark is not always in your eyes - even when you are using the browser! I am surprised that so many iOS fans have trouble understanding it. The unwanted Apple apps, on the other hand, are ALWAYS in your eyes. You understand the difference now?
Newsstand is spam if you want nothing to do with it. It is an imposition upon the device I own. With Android, I can disable any app I want, even built-in ones (for example, Samsung includes a bookmark provider that adds Samsung bookmarks, which I don't want).
Here's a thought: when all you can do is rail against the "haters", you are in a bad state of mind.
Is the phone app spam if I want nothing to do with it? The music app if I don't listen to music? Get real. There's a difference between Newsstand, which exists because it's very common for touch-device users to consolidate their reading subscriptions (as there is one for music and videos), and bloatware, which third parties pay companies to add to the OS and which detract from the experience.
> Is the phone app spam if I want nothing to do with it? The music app if I don't listen to music?
Yes. This is quite real of me, I assure you. If I can't make it Go Away if I have no use for it, it's spam. As it happens, I've consolidated my reading. It isn't in Newsstand. It should not trouble me if I don't want it, and having a "junk" drawer is a sad non-solution.
The common definition of spam is something that most people consider junk but a few people might use, thus justifying inflicting it upon everyone. Your definition is almost the opposite: something that most people find useful but that you happen not to need. This is an abuse if not outright misuse of the term.
Haha, many people just find it too painful to admit they were ever wrong. So once they say they support a given team, party, church, company they start ignoring all evidence against it.
Interesting how after your original argument (the difference between app and bookmark) was defeated you came up with a new one (percentage of people liking).
I don't think anybody made the claim that no app is spam, only, from what I can tell, that no iOS built-in app is spam. Which is more than lots of Android phones can say about their built-in apps.
Many people enjoy getting political news emailed to them. Many, many people. Yet it infuriates me when it gets forwarded to me because it is--wait for it--spam. It is annoying crap I don't want.
Spam is defined as whether it annoys the receiver, not the sender's intentions. And there's no 'unsubscribe' in iOS.
on a browser, would you rather go with suggestive ads by say google, or have google actually install an adbar that everyone under the sun can spam you with ?
And IMMEDIATELY the fandroids come out and pretend that we should be talking about how bad Apple is. +1 for the comment somewhere about how dense Android fans appear to be.
However bad you think Apple might be, Samsung is far, far worse, just much less successful and slick about it. I had thought the old adage about "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" was only believed by halfwits, apparently I was wrong.
FWIW, I was the first one in this thread to point out the app deletion issue on the iPhone and I am an iPhone user and haven't yet owned an Android. Undeletable crapware is crapware whether it is installed by Apple, Samsung or the carriers.
Apple was not paid by a third party to include it's own software features.
Game Center is like S Voice, a first part developed software that is billed as a "Feature".
Apple has no equivalent to "Pizza Hut" bookmarks that can't be deleted, because they control their carrier relationships better than Samsung who is willing to give their partners the freedom to install and screw up what they want.
Fortunately, Samsung is generally pretty good about letting us users have custom roms, which IMO trumps the Apple advantage for us power users. A custom rom > non-bloated default iOS, to me.
I'll take a pizza ad over Game Center opening up and asking me to make an account every time I play a game, thanks. But unlike the Apple die-hards, I can admit that both a utter crap.
Actually I think that post-Game Center games are much better behaved. Remember what it used to be like to OpenFeint and whatever the other one was that I don't remember the name of? That was far more obtrusive before Apple put in their own version and everyone started using that instead.
>I'll take a pizza ad over Game Center opening up and asking me to make an account every time I play a game, thanks. But unlike the Apple die-hards, I can admit that both a utter crap.
I totally agree and Google's forced G+ integration with the newer G+ Games services is very frustarting too.
No G+ I do not want your crappy me-too social network attached to my gaming apps.
But as is generally the case, I imagine people will hate Apple and love Google for doing the same business practice...
>>Apple was not paid by a third party to include it's own software features.
I'll point you to the Apple weather app with the prominent Yahoo! link at the bottom left. This would be more tolerable if the app itself wasn't terrible. I really wish I could delete Apple's apps, why not come with them installed and let you remove and re-add, say like podcasts.
Samsung is not pretty good regarding community support, here's an in depth story from a former CyanogenMod maintainer for Samsung's Exynos4 based devices (S2/S3/Note/Note2/etc) [1].
For example, emergency calling functionality was broken for a long time and has been reverse engineered only recently [2].
What do you call newsstand? It's a purely magazine advertising service. Would PizzaHut app be acceptable if it was called PizzaStand and allowed you to select from multiple pizza vendors?
Call it FoodStand, let if fill with food vendors in my neighbourhood (preferably those who offer delivery), and I'm all for it.
That would transform PizzaHut from an obnoxious ad ("seller oriented") to a genuinely useful option I would probably use on occasion ("customer oriented").
I dislike intrusive ads (and spending good money on a physical gadget just to be met by "congratulations, and incidentally you've also bought into a lifelong relationship with this pizza vendor" is intrusive).
But I don't mind being told that "newspapers are here, food is over there"; I might even find it useful at some point.
I still think it would be nice if Apple would let me hide the non-deletable apps I don't use: Let me hide the newsstand icon, pop it up again if I ever decide to subcribe to a newspaper.
But the newsstand doesn't grate me the way a permanent link to any particular magazine would. Any particular magazine is unlikely to be my favorite, it might even be one I hate. That doesn't imply that I hate magazines, newsstands, pizza or food in general.
... but still allow me to delete it if I prefer using another food ordering app instead like GrubHub.
The only apps that should not be deletable are core apps like settings and the app store.
Even those should be deletable if it asks you to designate another app on your phone as the replacement for that core service. That replacement app should be API compatible with the data store of the phone itself.
I should be able to replace Apple Maps with Google Maps. Camera with any number of other Camera apps. Photos with any other local photo browsing app. Calendar with something like Fantastical. Weather with something like Yahoo Weather. etc. etc.
I'm on a 5S - was trying to do it via iTunes, but I may not have the newest version. Of course, that bug mentioned might be a problem. That aside, I can do it via phone. Thanks for the heads up.
Yes, i can't move the magazines crap to the 'garbage' folder. Also, i can't use amazon appstore or something like that. app store lock-in is the ultimate bloatware.
Only place i really don't see bloatware is on my hacked HP touchpad. My only tablet until a month ago was a 32gb HP touchpad that I got from $199.
On day one I installed android on it and helped with some the kernel tweaks. Now i'm just running cyanogenmod9 there.
It is a blissful experience. Full control over browser. dumb webdeveloper used 8px and limited zoom? no problem, zoom anyway. dumb webdeveloper put in 1024px wide paragraph? no problem, zoom and double tab.
Even the more hardcore lack of control: publisher limited a game for a specific device (fishlabs and sony experia deals for example). no problem, edit build.props, say you are that device and download.
...Then, last month work forced to expend lots and lots of time on a latest Ipad and a galaxy tab3.
The galaxy tab is awful. shitty in every aspect. Only upside is that it have a IR blaster. I love those things. It is also pretty light. But then, the screen is crappier than anything i've ever used. just awful to look at. Then the ugly custom samsung skin just make it WORSE. they use twice the space for browser tabs for example. it's just idiotic. worst tablet experience in using a browser that one can have. Just do yourself a favor and get a generic chinese one instead. Also, it has the exact same performance as my old touchpad with one cpu for web rendering and movies. samsung really crapped all over this one.
The latest ipad (apple sucks on that, can't even refer it to a number because i can't see any number on the device case or software... is that an ipad3?) has the most awesome screen. But it's heavy as hell and the corners cut your hands if you are trying to hold it to watch netflix in bed. If feels fast, and will probably be for anyone not slightly multitasking. Multitask is so crap that, I kid you not, changing tabs in the browser, or going back one page, results in a full redraw of the page, and sometimes a refresh of that page. For example, go to reddit or hackernews... scroll the page as you do when reading the index. Click on a link or open it in another tab. read that link. Press back or close the tab. The index page REFRESHES because it was probably out of memory or something. now you are at the index page, at the TOP! your scroll information is lost. And probably the items changed in the mean time. Totally shitty experience. Changing apps is even worse. Several apps 'restart' when you multitask. So, it's the perfect device if you ever use one app at a time and have a fully linear, one tab, browser usage pattern.
I'm just very glad i have the touchpad. Wonder if a nexus tablet is as good... probably not.
> Multitask [on iOS on iPad 4] is so crap that, I kid you not, changing tabs in the browser, or going back one page, results in a full redraw of the page, and sometimes a refresh of that page. [...] Changing apps is even worse. Several apps 'restart' when you multitask.
> Full control over browser. dumb webdeveloper used 8px and limited zoom? no problem, zoom anyway. dumb webdeveloper put in 1024px wide paragraph? no problem, zoom and double tab.
All possible on iOS. In Safari, use Reader or JavaScript bookmarklets. Or use one of the many third party browsers that have web dev tools.
> The latest ipad (apple sucks on that, can't even refer it to a number because i can't see any number on the device case or software... is that an ipad3?)
The latest 10" iPad can be referred to as iPad 4th Generation or iPad Late 2012.
Yep, on IOS7. i actually got the device a day before it was officially out. to be honest, i'm using it for all my liner-web-browsing despite all the shortcommings, because the screen is that awesome.
you were right on the newstand thing. moved to the garbage folder.
Now the multitasking, all i've described is on IOS7.
The page refresh happens when reading hacker news, so i'm not sure it's a memory issue. It's just bad user experience based on some dumb assumption at design time probably.
His point is that Samsung allows carriers to manipulate and install crapware on their phones. Apple does not.
Whether you think built-in iOS features are "crapware" is besides the point. Everything that ships with iOS is put there deliberately by Apple. Compare that to a Samsung device, where you will be getting stuff put there by Samsung (which you might agree with and want) plus random stuff put there by carriers (which you almost certainly don't want).
Why does it matter to me, the customer, whether the crap on my phone that I can't get rid of was placed there by Samsung or my Carrier or Apple? It's still crap that I can't get rid of.
It doesn't matter to you as a consumer. That's not the point.
It only matters if you are interested in discussing the amount of control carriers are able to exert over manufacturers, and whether companies are willing to compromise their design vision to satisfy carriers.
The entire point of the OP is to that Samsung has a problem with crapware that is not under their control. Regardless of whether you think Apple's pre-installed apps are "crap", it is entirely under their control to remove them — meaning they are in a more flexible position than Samsung.
Again, not relevant to you as a consumer. Only relevant if you wish to take part in this discussion.
> I'm just very glad i have the touchpad. Wonder if a nexus tablet is as good... probably not.
I prefer my Nexus 7 over my Touchpad. It's a bit faster and much lighter. Touchpad has mostly been relegated to the Touchstone charging dock since I got the Nexus 7 last year. Also, no app compatibilities that the Touchpad had at times (mostly due to the 1024x768 screen). Also, the Touchpad is far from perfect when running Android 4.2 or later.
I use my touchpad with the native DPI, which is not officially supported, and never had any problem with app compatibility due to the screen... but i don't use many apps.
mostly browsing.
Also, i'm on CM9. which is android 4.0 something. The last thing that didn't work and was holding me on CM7 is the camera. It's working now. CM10, android 4.2 is coming and the reports are good, but it is a work in progress. That said. There is ZERO features i want from 4.2. OTH, CM7 and 9 have a feature where i can limit which permissions the APP is allowed to use at runtime. and other niceties such as render effects, etc. noted, all available on all androids, but not exposed as options to the user. because users are dumb or something and can't have options.
Samsung's customers are the carriers. The carrier asks Samsung for specific features or changes in the firmware build for the phones they buy from Samsung. Samsung satisfies their customer by giving them what they want.
The carrier is who you should gripe for the firmware misfeatures which you don't like in their phones. But due to the monopoly situation, they don't have to care very much what their subscribers think.
Yes, I do. It's called "Share" where the only options are Facebook and Twitter.
Why can't Apple let iOS users use the underlying universal, open protocols directly to do file transfers (data export) without installing a hodgepodge of third party apps which barely do the job?
You could argue Pizza Hut is the only pizza that Galaxy users will ever need. You could also argue that posting to Facebook and Twitter are the only means of data export that iOS users will ever need. You could also make a fool of yourself by making such arguments.
Prepare to be educated. Yes a lot of it is a hack but on half the supported phones CM isn't too much different really. At least the whited00r releases are stable and have consistent feature support over obsolete handsets.
I fully agree. Whatever craps on iPhone, that's Apple's problem (if exist...). Exactly like that, whatever craps on Galaxy, that's Samsung's problem. (also if exist).
I just put in Italian Vodafone SIM into unlocked iPhone 4S with iOS 7 and got Vodafone bookmark in Safari, which is indeed deletable. Haven't noticed new contacts so far.
It's not the SIM, it's the carrier bundle. Each iPhone ships (and updates) some XML files for each operator that contain all specific operator settings. These vary from radio configurations to features lock/unlock; eg: you can tell the iPhone how to remote-check whether tethering is activated on the data plan, and change the UI accordingly; it can also contain a custom action box to show to the user when they try to activate the feature, and/or activate the feature itself directly, communicating to the operator network so that they can bill the user.
Carrier bundles also allow carriers to specify bookmarks to add to Safari, the idea being that users "might find useful" to have direct links to check their invoices or so. Such bookmarks are of course deletable.
Yep, it's the carrier bundle. I have an unlocked Canadian iPhone 5 and when I put a T-moble sim in when travelling to the USA, I get an entry in my stocks app for T-moble.
All those complaining about Vodaphone S3 coming with a little bookmark which can't be deleted, and still somehow don't find Apple's crapware which can't be uninstalled too bad, two things:
1) That was really only the stock browser. You can very easily install much better browsers and make them the default - Chrome, Firefox, Dolphin browser. Isn't it amazing and unheard of in Apple's world?
2) And, FYI, you can still delete those bookmarks by a small trick, without rooting. http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1707047
There was also a trick to hide Newsstand in a folder without jailbreaking, before that became a feature. Doesn't matter to almost all users. I'd say the main factors for determining whether something is "crapware" are (a) the inherent odiousness of the software/bookmark/etc., (b) the difficulty of avoiding it, and (c) the level of technical justification for making it unremovable...
For Pizza Hut: (a) very odious, because it's pure marketing, irrelevant to the normal use of the device, and adds no useful functionality, since most users probably don't want a Pizza Hut bookmark, or could easily add one if they did; (b) requires switching completely to a new browser; (c) none, since a user is very unlikely to accidentally delete the bookmark and then be at a loss for how I get it back.
For Apple apps: (a) not much, since the apps are well designed and using Apple services with Apple's phone is a normal use case that applies to most users; (b) generally can be entirely avoided by moving to a folder, although it isn't always possible to replicate their functionality in third party apps, which is unfortunate (the previous inability to do so with Newsstand is essentially an implementation defect, since it was treated as a folder itself); (c) some, since although all apps ought to be redownloadable from the App Store, system apps are sort of a holdover from the original iPhone OS, and most new Apple apps have been put on the App Store, even things like iBooks.
Neither situation is great, but there's a big difference.
Is the Pizza Hut bookmark from Vodafone or Samsung? I have a Galaxy S 3 from T-Mobile and I don't have any bookmarks like that. It does have useless undeletable T-Mobile apps, but that's clearly T-Mobile's fault.
I guess so. I'm not sure they have as much leverage as Apple did with the iPhone. (Fun aside: Verizon was Apple's first choice for a launch carrier, but Verizon balked at the level of control they wanted over the device. Well, that and the cut of the monthly data plan fee.)
And then Verizon hemorrhaged customers until the CDMA iPhone 4 came out. I doubt people would be willing to switch carriers to get the Galaxy S5 (there is a lot of substitute goods in the Android world), nor does Samsung care to find out.
#2 is a link from September 2012. You mean this is still not fixed (as in >99% can update to a version that is fixed)?
Edit: "UPDATED 26 September: Samsung has told SlashGear that Galaxy S III users should ensure their phone is running the latest software as this resolves any issues:
'We would like to assure our customers that the recent security issue concerning the GALAXY S III
has already been resolved through a software update. We recommend all GALAXY S III customers to download the latest software update, which can be done quickly and easily via the Over-The-Air (OTA) service.'
Question: Is this OTA Update depending on whether providers let those updates through?
Regarding #2, that bug was fixed a year ago to the day, according to the very source you linked. I feel it's unfair to include what was clearly a mistake in the same category as deliberate malicious activity (#1 and the linked article)
Agreed, one is incompetence (remember, the stock Android browser had to be specifically patched by Samsung to enable the feature) and the others are simply not caring that much about customers. I don't feel it's unfair though.
I honestly thought this was a troll comment intended to show how ridiculous this sort of thing would be if region locking applied to printers. I was not pleased to find out that this is, actually, a thing.
He is hinting a the common knowledge of what DMCA is.
it practically makes it illegal to even change the battery of a device you bought if there is not an user accessible and labeled port to change said battery.
So i am guessing that fiddling with the DRM software on the printer also is a crime under such idiot law.
My Samsung printer (ML2165W) has some similar stupidity.
I had to flash it to accept a toner bought elsewhere.
It caught me off guard, my previous laser printer (also Samsung) happily accepted other cartridges (I would have bought Samsung, but they were out of stock).
I haven't turned it into a business model nor personal public initiative, yet, but I think we are to the point of needing to name and shame. And then conduct, or withhold, our business accordingly.
The manufacturers are way ahead of us here. Do you know how many model numbers the average printer manufacturer has - sometimes for the same product?
It's a byzantine mess that shifts every week or so. If you can solve this problem, you can also solve the problem of having consistent reviews for products.
The logical solution is to fall into the arms of Apple or their equivalent in a given industry.
In many areas, Apple doesn't exist (even with a different name). Worse, sometimes they exist, but only for a brief time as the company strip-mines the goodwill that a given product has to extract more profits and then fall back to "industry rest-state".
Customer preference to control manufacturers' behavior is a model that rarely works.
Reminds me of my Brother Printer/Fax/Scanner. Once ANY of the 4 ink carts is empty, you can no longer do ANYTHING. No scanning to a SD card, no outbound faxes, etc, until you replace the ink. Of course, there is a simple "tape over the holes" hack to get around this, but it's still lame.
I haven't looked much at the color ones, but if it's networkable get it on a network and poke around in its web-based management interface. On the mono lasers there's a setting for "Toner out" behavior - the default is "stop" but you can change it to "continue".
My Brother laser is the first printer I don't hate. Can't speak highly enough of them. And it even let me print (while throwing up a "No Ink" warning) until the pages came out blank.
Wow. This should be illegal or at least require labeling. Intentionally crippling a product in an obviously unexpected way should at least require disclosure.
Many people move almost all the stuff they have, for example when they get a good enough relocation amount. Why even waste $50 from your pockets when you already have a good and working printer?
I think that this is a great opportunity to clarify laws. There are a few EU countries that require phones to be SIM-unlocked at the end of contracts. The question is - will this fall foul of those laws, as people can use the device with other carriers in Europe but not outside? There will presumably be a court case around this (as it's the first one) and the result will probably force even more openness for EU citizens based on Neelie Kroes' previous successes.
The problem is with bundling. Carriers should be forbidden to bundle phones and plans long time ago.
It's antitrust issue and a big one. Microsoft faced trouble for bundling their browser with operating system which you could easily replace with any other one while carriers are forcing phone manufacturers to accept ridiculous terms (unless they are Apple or recently Google) and customers have no way uninstall all the crapware.
you're getting your terms wrong. The antitrust concept is called "tying" and what it means is using a lawfully-acquired monopoly (or dominant) position in one market to increase market share in another. Because no carrier has anything like a monopoly position in any market, and no phone manufacturer does either, is very far from an antitrust issue.
It may be scummy and short-sighted, but it doesn't implicate antitrust law.
In a sense cartel of carriers has a monopoly. That is even without any conscious wrong doing from their side they act like monopoly forcing prices and terms on manufacturers (breaking the cartel isn't in their interest so even if all of them want to do the best for themselves and don't collude the factual cartel won't be broken).
I was expressing the sentiment and I don't doubt that as the law stands right now it's not formally "antitrust issue". It's however very similar in nature and should be treated as such.
It's close to impossible to introduce a phone without being tied to a carrier. That's exactly what monopoly looks like when dominant player (the one having a monopoly) controls one of the crucial parts of supply chain and can just cut you off if they wish (or if you don't comply).
Usual argument is that it's not a monopoly if you can shop around and choose different provider. Here you really can't without putting yourself in very unfavorable position comparing to players who do comply.
Back to bundling for a bit: it's a practice which is about always bad for a customer. Bonuses, paybacks, plans with phones, loyalty points at gas station. Every one of those reduces competition between providers/sellers by tying customers to them. If about every provider on the market uses the same bundling policy it becomes a monopoly from the point of view of manufacturers of bundled product - they will never be able to compete without bending backwards to meet the requirements of the monopoly owner(s).
That was an idea behind lawsuit vs Microsoft (dominant player bundling their browser making competition (close to) impossible or even "unfair") and that's the exact same situation with carriers or cable providers. Them being a cartel of several instead of monolithic entity shouldn't cloud the issue here.
Digressing, I wonder if antitrust would say that Google is "tying" their Google+ social network to the lawfully-acquired dominant market position of YouTube.
There is a thin line between trying to integrate and optimize services and applications between them, and forcing unwanted applications down the throat of users.
Buy something else. Stat. It doesn't matter even if this is just a sticker put up by some product marketing idiot, it shows that they feel good about imposing these region-specific restrictions in a phone that operates according to a global standard.
The nexus devices are generally good about this sort of thing. Most of Samsung's other carrier-partnered phones are loaded with absolute crap anyway, this is another good reason not to buy them.
It shows that they are putting the interests of the carriers way above their customers'. Now, that's a business decision, they have their own priorities, and fiduciary duties to shareholders and all that, good for them. I'll just take my money elsewhere in the future (and I don't even care about being able to switch sim cards, really).
I recently went to the US for a few weeks. My Nexus 4 worked just fine with a US SIM from T-Mobile. $70 for a month for voice and data was worth it, and everything worked quite nicely. Big +1 for unlocked products!
Do you have a contract? That maybe why price you pay is cheaper.
Seems like parent was only in US for a short period of time, so he probably didn't wanted to sign a, say 12 months, contract.
It's a prepaid plan with T-Mobile. No contract. Every Nexus 4 owner loves to talk about it. Go look at the Nexus 4 subreddit, it's a circle jerk of people who are "beating the system" by using a low-end phone on a sub-par carrier and getting "unlimited data".
Nice troll. You can get the same plan with any GSM phone.
T-Mobile is about the same as Sprint and AT&T, and all are sub-par to Verizon. But what's nice about T-Mobile is that you get unlimited data, whereas with Verizon, you'd better cash in your fleet of 777s to afford your bill.
And +1 for non-contract-friendly carriers like T-Mobile. Anytime someone bitches about their phone contract (here in US), I ask if they're willing to switch to TMO like I did.
Some have good reasons why (mainly coverage, tho TMO is getting better), others are forced to question their contract policy.
Right now I'm paying monthly at TMO what I paid on Verizon+AT&T for me and my wife - except I now get 3 other smartphones on the plan for the same price, all with their own 500M data pool.
Once the new phones are paid off (i.e. equipment loan), I'll be paying just a bit over what I did for just one of my lines for all five lines I'm paying today. And no other carrier in the US has HD Voice.
Pure speculation here, but my guess is that this has to do with different models being certified by different bodies. IE, perhaps the model sold in Europe is subtly different and hasn't passed FCC or some other certification for use in the states, ergo, they lock them to where they HAVE been certified.
Doesn't change the fact that I wouldn't buy it, but I don't think it is something that is done for some evil reason as some will jump to.
If it was a certification issue it would affect every mobile device by every device manufacturer. My guess is that this may be an attempt by Samsung to crack down on grey market imports of their devices. The author suggests it might be a requirement buy carriers, but again that would affect more than just one manufacturer. At the moment we're all just speculating.
No, it wouldn't have to hold for every device, only those that have different SKUs for different regions. Maybe the EU Note3s have some tweaks for the LTE bands in use there or vice versa.
Either way it might also be a purely legal thing, by having the sticker they indemnify themselves from the FCC saying you can't sell this for use in the US because it isn't certified.
People always jump to crazy conclusions when there are much simpler explanations that don't involve companies shooting themselves in the foot. Samsung as a brand is killing it in the world in general, they have no incentive to do something like this.
"The author suggests it might be a requirement buy carriers, but again that would affect more than just one manufacturer."
It would only if the other manufacturers caved in to carrier demands. If this is true, more might well do so shortly, but it kind of makes sense -- Samsung is likely looking for every angle to gain share over the iPhone. One could imagine that a sweet deal with carriers could gain them more promotions, greater subsidies (yielding cheaper phones), etc. etc.
My guess is that this may be an attempt by Samsung to crack down on grey market imports of their devices.
Why would they want to do this? I could understand it in the case of a low-priced device intended for poor regions of the world, but this is a high-end phone that is presumably a similar (high) price everywhere it's sold.
Not really. I can either buy phone from local distribution or pay 10-20% less and get an imported one (wouldn't be surprised if it were from richer region, such as NA). That is the shop is still making money after they moved it half a globe and paid import taxes on it.
Because of that local distributors make much less money - they have to price lower and they don't sell as much. And probably forced this onto Samsung, which couldn't care less I guess since they still sold the phone in the end.
It seems to me that Samsung should care because there's a significant correlation between people who engage in regular intercontinental travel and people who buy expensive smartphones.
Hmm.. Is that really a responsibility of a device manufacturer? If I build a weird radio here and get approval to use it, I can certainly take it to the US and operate there (unlicensed).
Heck, I can use just about every wifi device in 'EU' mode and operate outside of the limits of the US regulation, right?
If this is driven by carrier request, as the article speculates, then it is yet another example of how the mobile market is broken... Are phone manufacturers selling to consumers/end-users or are they selling to networks/providers? You can't do both, equally -- at least not at the moment -- because the carrier's interests and profit models generally directly conflict with the interests of consumers. Until the wireless industry works a bit harder to align themselves to the needs of their consumers, stuff like this is going to happen. The exception are models like Apple's where they've figured out how to consistently drive profits by focusing on the consumer and using the phone as a platform for selling other things (i.e.: apps and content like movies and music) -- the carriers are almost incidental in Apple's model. Almost.
> The exception are models like Apple's where they've figured out how to consistently drive profits by focusing on the consumer and using the phone as a platform for selling other things (i.e.: apps and content like movies and music) -- the carriers are almost incidental in Apple's model. Almost.
This is absolutely untrue. Apple's business model is to sell $650 phones to carriers, who then turn around and sell them to consumers for the same price as $350 dollar phones. This is why they have fantastic margins. If the carrier model ever goes away it would be bad news for Apple, who would have to compete on price to a greater extent than they do today.
To an extent, you're right, I overstated my case. They make their profits from hardware, yes, but they don't sell to carriers. They sell to consumers, some of whom buy from individual carriers but the majority channel for iPhone sales is from Apple itself. No other phone maker can say that.
Secondly, Apple's profit is uniquely enriched because it has built the platfrom that it has -- again, no other phone manufacturer reaps the direct from consumer benefit Apple does.
Lastly, because Apple sells markets/sells to the consumer, the consumer picks Apple first and then the carrier -- many change carriers but continue to be loyal to Apple as a phone maker. This is definitely the culmination of a major sea change in the mobile industry. Apple may not the only phone maker that has ever had a consumer act this way, but they are the first to have it happen on a widespread basis.
Horace Dediu makes the case that carriers pay more for Apple hardware because Apple does a better job of getting high value customers onto the network (use more data or more expensive contracts).
Apple still works with the carriers quite a bit. For example, you can't turn on tethering unless the carrier allows it (often requiring you to pay more money), and most iPhones sold in the US are locked to a single carriers.
But who can blame them? Of the $650 cost of a new iPhone, the user only pays $200, while the carrier pays $450. Apple knows where their bread is buttered.
THIS is what I don't understand. Why do people call it "subsidized" when you're locked in to a 2 year contract with an early termination fee.
IT IS NOT SUBSIDIZED, PEOPLE.
You may say, well I'm paying the same per month whether I take a new phone or not from the carrier, so... it's subsidized right? Nope, they're just gouging you when you're on an old phone. Taking the new phone just slightly reduces your disadvantage. Let's put it this way, if MVNOs can offer you piggybacked network rates at $X while traditional operators rates are $3X aren't you a bit surprised? It's not that the operators are going to sell to MVNOs for a loss, and not that MVNOs are going to sell to you for a loss.
It's subsidised in that they are fronting you the money.
My wife has about £100/month disposable income and pays about £30/month for her handset and contract. When her renewal comes around she can buy the handset for, say £400. Apart from to get that £400 she needs to go without beer and eating out and new shoes for 4 months (never going to happen). Or make do with less for, say, a year (very unlikely given she doesn't really care enough about handsets).
Her alternatives are to take the contract and handset bundle or to buy the handset on credit. Assuming she takes a SIM-only plan like mine (£13/month with limits I've never exceeded) that leaves her with £17/month to pay off the credit on £400. I've not done the figures but I'd say that probably works out at around two years - so it doesn't really give her any advantage beyond avoiding lock-in; which she'll only care about if we change country (remember she's not really bothered about handsets)
Which is all a long way of saying that many people's priorities aren't the same as ours (by which I mean frequenters of Hacker News) - which alters the equation and makes buying off-contract less appealing than getting everything up-front and paying for it over time.
In my experience, people like that aren't interested in getting a brand new phone every 24 months like HN users are. For someone like that, it makes much more sense financially to buy a phone outright, since they are unlikely to take full advantage of the subsidy.
I doubt that anyone on this site is the least bit confused as to how the system actually works. It's not exactly a secret.
They still front the money, then get it back from you over time. I'd say that qualifies as "subsidized", especially when the "over time" payments are not broken out separately.
Regardless of how it works out afterwards, the fact is that most American buyers prefer to pay $200 up front with a contract versus paying all $650 themselves. If Apple wants the carriers to keep putting up $450 in exchange for locking people into contracts, they have to cooperate at least a bit.
Comparing oranges with oranges - you compare the "bundle" cost with the price you'd pay if you simply took the phone on credit from any electronics shop with the same upfront payment and length of contract, and added a cheap no-handset mobile plan.
The phone qualifies as "subsidized" only if buying it from your mobile company turns out cheaper than if buying it separately. Generally it isn't.
You can do such a comparison probably in any country worldwide except US. For US in particular the "subsidy" answer is simple - no, you're not getting any subsidies, in mobile comms pricing you're getting ripped off, and noone has any idea on how to fix it.
I don't understand this idea that subsidies are mutually exclusive with getting ripped off.
Yeah, I pay a lot of money. I also get ~$450 back to help pay for my phone. That's a subsidy. The fact that my monthly bill is ~$65/month/person is irrelevant to that.
It's actually a very good point - yes, in USA that is a cross-subsidy where phone service income is used to subsidize handset purchase. In other places, where the basic phone service is commoditized and cheaper, then the monthly handset payment usually isn't subsidized; it's just that when I see "$65/mth" I mentally think "$20/mth phone bill + $45/mth handset payment", which comes out as overpriced phone; but in your example it should be treated as a large phone bill subsidizing handsets.
Interestingly, it seems that the US market is slowly moving toward the way you're saying. T-Mobile, for example, now offers cheaper service by default, and if you want a "subsidized" phone, they treat it as a loan that you pay back over time, and charge that amount separately. The other providers have introduced plans for people who want to upgrade every year rather than the standard every two years, which involves paying an extra monthly charge on top of the regular bill.
Not sure how it works in the US but last time I bought a new phone in the UK I calculated the total cost of ownership over 24 months of various options, including buying the phone unlocked plus a SIM-only airtime deal, and getting the phone-plus-airtime on a contract.
The contract worked out cheaper. That's a subsidy isn't it?
The ETF goes down, but so does the value of the phone - you're also paying off the difference in price every month.
On Tmobile when you bring your own device you can get a $50 everything plan - the equivalent plan is $100 on competing networks. Granted you could argue this isn't all subsidy and that Tmobile is also cheaper because their network is worse, but when you compare to international cell services this doesn't appear to be the case.
I remember several years ago back in canada, the plan prices were the same if you brought your own phone or if you got one on contract. They wouldn't even give you decent promo plans unless you got the contract anyway. So when pricing is the same, the rational thing to do is to buy a subsidized phone.
In my experience, Apple will enable/disable the following features by carrier:
- Tethering
- FaceTime over 3G
- 3G, LTE, toggles to turn 3G or LTE on or off
- APN settings
And unlike on Android, where these features just get disabled on the phones locked to/distibuted by that carrier, even unlocked iPhones bought on another continent will lock these features when they see the carrier's SIM card.
Do they work behind the scenes with the carriers? Absolutely, but the consumer doesn't see it. They see that their iPhone works. Consistently and without any branding or experience difference accross cariers. AT&T doesn't get to customize or pre-install anything and Verizon can't lock out features. (Teathering is perhaps a small exception in this, but the point is largely true). The point is that as you model a product/service experience, don't confuse what happens behind the line of visibility -- it doesn't matter to the consumer -- and Apple has done a great job of shifting that line of visibility to abstract away the carrier experience as much as it can.
As others have mentioned, don't for a second think the consumer isn't paying the full cost of the phone. They are and more -- but that subsidy doesn't differentiate any carrier from another. They all do it. So, once again, the consumer fails to see any differentiation based on carrier. As I discuss at length above, consumers are primarily buying the Apple experience and platform -- and the carrier is secondary.
Absolutely. Carriers are Apple's biggest customers, not end users.
Possibly the funniest part of the "you are the product" meme many Apple fans are fond of is how many of them fail to notice that they are the product that Apple has sold to a carrier.
I own a Samsung Galaxy S4 - and had a similar message on my box - "This product is only compatible with a SIM-card issue from a mobile operator within the Americas (The North, South and Central Americas and the Caribbean)". However it works perfectly well with European SIM Cards (tested with both Spanish and UK SIMs).
I own a Galaxy Note 2 and decided quite soon after I would never buy Samsung again even though I think it is a great piece of hardware. The issue is they promised to release sources for certain drivers and never actually did, CyanogenMod said they would not officially support the device[1]. Samsung feel like an anti-consumer company, them pulling a stunt like this would not surprise me[2].
[1] Thankfully they did just recently release a stable version.
[2] I also made the same decision about Sony years ago when they released rootkits on their CD's.
Time for someone to create the most advance and far reaching global communication network using satellites, towers and other methods and charge everyone a small base fee for unlimited, global use. No contracts, no need for text, data etc packages, no need for roaming fees. Just one simple payment a month. Unlimited roaming, calling, data, texts, multimedia messages, voicemail, call forwarding, etc. Big communication companies of the day will die, as they should. Easy communication for all, no bs.
Looking at Twitter and at Google's first 50 results on Note 3, I can't help but wonder : is the marginal profit they expect from region-locking so high that it will pay for all the bad buzz?
At first sight, even though pricing differences exist between regions around the world, on this kind of products they are not that big, not to mention that that part of these price differences come from retailing alone...
So these differences must be big enough to justify alienating your early adopter userbase, thus endangering the whole adoption process, not to mention bad PR that will stick. When you try too hard to get every cent out of people and they start seeing it - and any locking of that kind screams "I'm going to get more juice out of this" - they generally don't like it.
It's probably to stop people from importing cheaper devices from other regions. Samsung wants the flexibility to price devices differently by region/market and that doesn't work if the consumer can import the cheapest one instead. This will probably continue to escalate because the way the market is heading prices have to get lower in expanding/poorer markets while customers in established/wealthier markets are willing to pay more. This is a side effect of trying to win the race to the bottom on price.
Samsung Germany issued a statement on the issue. Apparently, more flagships will be regionally locked, but users will get to unlock the phones at Samsung’s service centers.
It isn't. The Note 3 has a list of blacklisted cellular operators outside your region, if you try to use a sim card created by one of them you get an error on the screen and it refuses to connect.
The leaflet is just a leaflet, the issue here is that Samsung have added software intentionally designed to block cross-region usage.
I'm a software engineer and have worked on bringing some consumer products to market which have cellular radios. Even though the GSM standard is "Global", there are different frequency assignments in different nations. So getting the software to work on multiple carriers, and getting the antenna-array tuned to work on multiple frequencies are two unrelated tasks.
Usually the trade-off is device thickness. If you add another element to the antenna array you can make it work on both 700Mhz and 750Mhz. But if you try to tune for 725Mhz you'll get crap performance in all countries.
This is a great business model from the standpoint of making profits (less so from the standpoint of ethics or consumer satisfaction).
Most people don't travel internationally very frequently, and region locking is not something that's marketed, so they only discover it when they actually travel, and then they're forced to buy another phone!
Forget region locking, can't they inflate their profits further at their customers' expense if they just use GPS or tower location to deactivate the phone when the user gets 200 miles from home? That would increase your market from international travelers to domestic travelers...
Most folks don't buy another phone and the carrier makes a bundle on $2/min calls from the foreign country.
The smarter folks buy a cheap $30 GSM/CDMA phone before the trip, the even smarter ones have a world phone and confirm it's capable of taking foreign sims (though having a fallback $30 GSM phone isn't a bad idea).
> having a fallback $30 GSM phone isn't a bad idea
Especially if you need to use SMS two-factor authentication on your normal home number. Trying to make a bank transfer when the code is sent to SIM A and the data plan is on SIM B is otherwise an interesting challenge. (That's the voice of experience.)
I've got a Note II and if you look on Wikipedia[1] you'll see there are 16 different models. Mine is one of the two designated as "International" and it was factory unlocked.
I think we need to hold judgement until all the facts are in. It's very possible that they will create an unlocked international version of the Note III as well. From the outcry, it sounds like it would sell well. Only question is if it will have the same limitation as the international Note II: no LTE.
This just goes to show that companies will put as many DRM restrictions as possible on their devices and content, if there's no backlash, just because they "think" it would be a good idea to do it. I wish the general public would fight more against DRM, instead of simply accepting it by saying stuff like "but that's the only way I can use X". It sends companies the wrong message.
Haven't seen this mentioned. The phones are region locked only until activated with a SIM from that Region. This way phones have to be used in there home market. I suppose this is for controlling exports from UK or South America to US.
A side... Sprint Iphones SIM SLOT are technically unlockable by Sprint but only to regions/carriers not the US.
I'm eagerly awaiting some clarification on this. I was going to buy a note 3 the day it becomes available through my carrier. If there is no workaround to the region locking I'll stick with my blackberry 9900 until a better option comes along (perhaps the HTC One Max).
My guess is that this isn't a matter of common - but one of knowledge. 2 of the 4 big US carrier sell GSM phones with sim chips, but as the phones are almost all locked down, only tech folk know this.
To everyone else an AT&T phone is an AT&T phone, not a GSM phone, and no-one ever opens them up to pull out the SIM cards.
Whenever I've purchased a SIM card, I've gone to an AT&T store, and convinced the employee to look around for them. They always have them both pre and post-pay, but even AT&T employees don't necessarily know that till they look them up on the computer.
I'd love to have the number of choices that Americans have in the wireless market, compared to the rather protected cartel we have in Canada. Verizon dropped some hints about coming here, recently, and the Big 3 wireless companies here launched a huge campaign to try to stop it.
Every phone of mine has had a Sim card for at least 10 years. But the plans are so expensive I imagine it's not very common for tourists to pick up sim card while they are visiting Canada.
What possible reason have they got to do this? Do they really think that customers buying multiple phones will make up from the lost sales from people who wont?
The Samsung Galaxy S4 has the same sticker and works with every SIM.
It's just that Samsung lacks focus and is incompetent at communicating with its customers and non Korean employees.
Probably some idiot manager in Europe decided to put this sticker on the case and they don't know about it (or didn't understand this) in their headquarter.
According to Samsung only S4s made after July 2013 will be impacted. It has been well confirmed that it isn't just a threat, if you insert the wrong SIM you get an error.
Thank goodness I went for the HTC One instead then. I've personally bought local SIM cards in Germany, Sweden, Spain, UK (where I got it from) and South Africa.
1. Galaxy S 3 includes undeletable Pizza Hut bookmark http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1707047
2. Galaxy custom web browser allows random web sites to make links that wipe and reset the phone: http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/117422-samsung-galaxy-s-3-re...