OEM: Let's differentiate our otherwise
commodity hw product!
OEM: I know, let's add value with bundled
software the customer can't uninstall!
Then the bundled software turns out to (inevitably) be useless vulnerable garbage. Inevitably because a) the customer doesn't need it, b) it's engineered with all the effort that normally goes into adware for captive audiences (i.e., _minimal_), which means it will be vulnerable.
It works, too. This is partly why the iPhone was so popular, at first. It's been so long now that probably everyone has forgotten, but before the iPhone, essentially every smartphone on the market was fully loaded with trialware, crapware, and often had hardware features locked out by software so that you could pay extra to unlock them.
I remember one particular phone that had four user-configurable hardware buttons, but Verizon had locked them down so that they all opened the Verizon ringtone store.
The iPhone was a breath of fresh air if only for its software.
Even a brand new, unlocked, $1000 Samsung Galaxy S10 comes riddled with adware and spyware, some of it unremovable:
"There are apps from Flipboard and Spotify as well as a unremovable version of Facebook. McAfee Anti-virus is baked into the operating system as "security," and the Samsung Gallery app wants to share my location with Foursquare. The storage management settings, which is just a simple file-cleanup app, is "Powered by Qihoo 360," a Chinese security company. A caller-ID feature built into the phone app is provided by a company called "Hiya."
Once you run through setup and connect to Wi-Fi, the phone spawns an undismissable "Secure Wi-Fi" notification, which, it turns out, is an ad for McAfee VPN subscription service. I tried blocking the notification—it's not blockable—but it turns out you can open the advertisement, carefully consider subscribing to McAfee VPN, say "No," and then it will go away. Cool."
Google branded hardware has a notorious reputation for problems about 1-1.5 year down the road. This has happened with every single Google device anyone in my family has ever owned and so we've basically stopped buying Google. Very few manufacturers apart from Samsung come close to Apple in terms of sheer hardware quality and service support and Apple OS's lack of customisability, pathetic camera and lack of 3.5mm jack completely rules it out for me. That's basically why I have paid a premium for Samsung over the years. I may look at Huawei too now that they appear to have significantly upped the hardware quality game.
Being virtually stock Android, pre-installed software is easily disabled (even FB) - the only major complaint is inability to assign Bixby button to something else without rooting.
? I used a Nexus 5 up until last year. Ended up upgrading last year, not because it had issues or because lineage stopped releasing for it, but because IT at my new job refused to let six-year-old devices on the network. Meanwhile, my parents complained continuously about their three-year-old iPhones getting slower and slower. Anecdotes, yeah, but...
On mine the plastic frame cracked between the power button and the volume control (I think a reasonably common problem with this phone, I've never had a frame crack on any other phone). After that one button gets stuck on, which makes phone cycle reboot - OK - I can workaround that. Then the microphone went bad: that is caused by the crack causing pressure on the micro-connector which causes an electrical issue. That wasted more time and eventually my workaround for that issue failed.
I have had close experience with 5 different Nexus devices, and 4 of the 5 had nasty failure modes.
The Nexus line has been far less reliable than the iOS devices I have had experience with, and all the Apple devices got far more security updates over their useful life. Note: I usually use Android phones and iPad tablets (although I have also personally had iPhones and Android tablets).
The soft plastic casing definitely cracks easily. On the other hand it does not fail catastrophically. I have dropped my Nexus 5 on the floor more times than I can count and while it has miniature cracks around the button/power connector it's nothing that prevents the phone from working.
> On the other hand it does not fail catastrophically
So my two complete failures due to the crack were not "catastrophic" then?
The case cracking is common, and those two failures were common enough: most users would consider the phone uneconomic to fix, and not everyone has my tenacity or skill to waste time fixing their phone.
I also think it was that phone where the flash slowed enough to make it barely usable.
Back on topic.
The only Nexus I have had that hasn't had a problem was a Samsung Nexus 10 (still goes, but stuck on insecure Android 5.1).
The only Samsung phone I have had was the original Galaxy Nexus, which was still going when I gave it away last year. It's problems were: 1. screen burnin (OLED) and 2. Google didn't release Android 4.4 (due to TI dropping OMAP4 support?) even though 4.4 came out within 2 years. That phone cost more than an iPhone 4. My colleagues got iPhone 4 phones at the same time, and they got updates for twice as long and their phones remained useful for far longer.
So my experience with Samsung hardware has been good. I have always avoided buying Samsung because I hate their modified Android versions and lack of updates.
I loved mine, I'd still be using it if I could have found one that didn't have motherboard issues. It was a pinnacle of industrial design and I'm sad that smartphone designs have moved away from it.
My iphone 4 was pretty much as fast as the nexus 5 and way less buggy.
The nexus 5 is the only phone that I almost threw against a wall, I’ll never touch android anymore after that shit show.
You must have a very high tolerance to bugs and poor performance. My friend was very happy when I sold him that piece of crap, so it must be subjective.
Pixel 2 XL, since I also had to stop using a Nexus 7 at the same time and I didn't want to have to deal with not having a large screen to read on. It's been good so far. I haven't had any issues with the lack of a headphone jack, mostly because that jack was also the one part of the Nexus 5 that'd also failed so I was already on bluetooth-only. I upgraded about eight months after the release so they'd hammered out the QC issues on the screen. I see some black smears when I'm scrolling over pictures with black backgrounds on dark themes with the brightness all the way down in a dark room, but that's not something I'd call an issue. The real problem is actually the curved screen, which is sensitive to touch all the way out to the bezel a millimeter or two around the side of the phone, so I get a few misclicks a month when my palm hits the side of the screen while I'm trying to type. I get about two days of battery out of it despite heavy use while I'm on the subway to and from work. It does not feel a sturdy as my Nexus 5, and the screen is not as nice to read on as the Nexus 7 was; the aspect ratio is far too tall. It's definitely better than my old Droid Incredible, though I still miss the physical keyboard. I don't know if it'll be as good as the Nexus 5. It's so far only a sixth as old.
Same here. On 5T. My only issue was lack of security updates in the end. I could try to flash with another distro but too much work with too little gain. Love my 5T even more.
Tasker can assign the Bixby button as of the newest update that just dropped. Also double clicking power and volume up and down long presses (though I had to use adb to enable the volume on my phone, none of this requires root).
I hadn't messed with tasker in a long time but that got me back.
I have been a samsung buyer for at least 6 years and 4 phone models. The bixby button is an absolute deal breaker for me. I dont know what i will do, but it wont be a samsung with bixby
I got an S10 because of the headphone jack and sd card slot. I uninstalled or disabled any software I didn't need pretty easily. I find it to be a fantastic phone.
> I don't understand why folks subject themselves to this for $1000 when other options are available.
After my "flagship" HTC10 became unusable within 2 years because of battery issues, I was in the market for a new phone. But I was determined to not spend over $250. I ended up with Nokia 6.1. The only issue with it is that it is just a little slow because it uses snapdragon 435 (I think). However for the same reason it's battery lasts up to 2 days. Other stand-out features are unibody metal design, and Android One (meaning no bloatware). I bought it for only $180 from Best Buy after price match, and sold the HTC for $60 at decluttr.com. I think this is one of the best value purchase I ever made- up there with a Toyota Corolla.
If I wanted the best camera in a phone on the market, my choices were the Note 9 (before the Pixel 3, I think) or one of the iPhones. I have enough invested in the Google/Android ecosystem that moving would be painful, plus I'm not a fan of Apple.
You can always build your own AOSP (which is essentially Android minus Google). In case of Pixels, this is particularly easy. I use a Pixel to avoid Google, which is a bit paradoxical.
Yes, that was always the draw of the Nexus and Pixel lines. "Vanilla Android." Really hope that's still the case, though I've switched back to iPhone for a number of reasons.
I used to buy Nexus phones and jailbreak them for SU root privileges so I could deny apps (mostly by google) from using permissions without my consent on app launch.
With that being said, I'll be switching to an iPhone for privacy reasons, starting with my next phone and I've been a loyal Android user since Google started with the G1. How times have changed...
Sure, awful, but HMD Global fixed the problem which I respect.
My other choices are Google (expensive, multiple Nexus letdowns in past), Samsung/LG (awful software), Chinese phones (crapware, I don't trust), Sony (abusive relationship), a bunch of other brands with other reasons I dislike, or iPhone (costly and I don't like the UI).
True. And i totally agree with your roundup of the main alternatives. I went for a Chinese phone last time and it's probably the best one I've had in terms of quality and features. But Lord knows what stuff I'm sending back to China. I've been meaning to try lineage out.
It was bad enough with the fucking Bixby button that can't be disabled on my Samsung S8 Active. Hearing about the S10 solidifies that my next phone will absolutely not be a Samsung. Which is a shame since the hardware is otherwise great.
These criticisms exist because Samsung does not offer first-party solutions to things such as malware detection, location sharing, storage management, caller ID, VPN, music streaming, and news aggregation. It's unclear how exactly these services are being used (Samsung should be more clear on this front) and what parts of it are integrated (Samsung should be more clear here as well).
But, well, put it this way. If Google or Apple had offered first-party solutions to each of those services, would they be criticized for offering bloatware as well? No, probably not. So, is the issue here that the services aren't first-party (Spotify) or that they aren't from traditionally trustworthy sources (McAfee)? If it's the former, why does it matter? If it's the latter, then Samsung should be more clear about the extent of the influence of the other company, which they are not, but that shouldn't necessarily exclude them from collaborating.
Now, there are some key issues that should be criticized. Hard. A persistent notification? It's unforgivable. Facebook? The amount of tracking they can do makes them a threat to the device. It's basically spyware. It can be disabled, sure, but it shouldn't be enabled in the first place (except to enable Gear VR, I guess).
But really, can you trust any major tech company, considering programs like PRISM exist and are in operation? What differentiates Google from Apple when the device is still able to transmit whatever it wants to whoever it wants however it wants? Apple or Google may or may not be tracking some piece of data, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it isn't being collected and tracked by someone. That the companies themselves don't happen to store the data that happens to be the very thing they make their money protecting and using? It's definitely better in that your data isn't being used for the company's profit, but is it really any better for privacy from, say, the government?
> If Google or Apple had offered first-party solutions to each of those services, would they be criticized for offering bloatware as well?
The tech community seems to assume that software from Apple and Google will be well-thought-out and useful, and will be easy to dismiss if the user doesn't want it. The community seems to assume the opposite of anything from any other hardware company.
Honestly, those assumptions seem correct about 80% of the time.
>Verizon had locked them down so that they all opened the Verizon ringtone store
I had a similar issue with a phone I bought around 2005. I wanted an unlocked device, and by EU law, a carrier can't refuse to sell you that. So just pop into any store, right?
The device was unlocked but carrier branded, so the useless menu locked in place front-and-center was doubly useless because none of the carrier services worked.
I made sure to never get any phone through any carrier after that, and now that Android phones are having the same problem I'm so glad I did. Mine have always been crap free.
Exactly. Doing better by your customers is a differentiator. It's worked very well for Apple. Microsoft could easily take a consumer-friendly stance on OEMs preinstalling software. Microsoft please!
The first iPod touch had a broadcom chip that supported Bluetooth, but wasn't supported in the software stack. You needed to upgrade to use the Bluetooth hardware that you had already paid for.
That's wrong in two ways. First, many Android phones, including my Galaxy S7, can use the FM radio via the NextRadio app. Second, iPhones do not have an FM radio.
My S7 can still do it. The reason newer phones can't is because they lack an aux jack: the wire is used as an antenna. Another great reason to keep the headphone jack.
I'm not sure exactly what it is, though I know all the S7s do. I suppose it may be carrier-locked? I bought mine unlocked, not via a carrier. It's a handy feature, though. Free music and entertainment with zero data spent. I've got to wonder why people moved away from it. No signal issues either.
The thing which worries me about OnePlus and similar cheaper options is the security patches. They seem to be very slow/non-existent and the devices aren't supported for very long.
Second product for this mythical OEM should just be a TV with an instant-on button and as many hdmi ports that will fit given a small-as-possible bezel. One model per year per common size->one price. Big sale on thanksgiving and then the slightly better ones come out.
Please. I use a 4k TV as my computer monitor. It's works fairly well for that because I researched it and found a good fit, but I use a remote to start it every time, and it takes 15-20 seconds before it's ready to receive input. That's a long time to be sitting in front of your computer waiting, especially when it happens 3-10 times a day.
I avoid those problems by never turning my TV or monitor off. It does mean they light up the room at night so it wouldn't work if you had it in a bedroom.
EDS - Remember that big huge company H.Ross Perot Ran? - We TRIED to buy PCs from hardware vendors without Windows. They refused due to how Bill locked them into contracts. If it was to run Windows, then Windows was shipped with every single hardware sale. On the bill of lading.
Government doesn't pay for stuff they don't use. Didn't want Windows if they were to run UNIX (Santa Cruz Operations XENIX System 5, to be precise). Wonder why some people at SCO went crazy and snorted their futures? Blame Bill.
I was just setting up a slightly older System76 desktop this evening when I came across how they handle firmware updates [1]. That's very impressive to me, showing concern about only using blobs when there's no other option, being transparent about signing, and explaining their QA process, not to mention the whole utility being open-sourced. That's worlds ahead of any other OEM PC manufacturer I've ever seen.
OEM: how can we make money on a commodity platform, when someone else controls most of the design parameters and they are dictated to us, and margins are razor thin, because most people who buy PC’s want to spend the least amount of money.
OEM Sales: we have companies lining up to bundle software on our computers and they are all willing to big money to be bundled, and even more money to be bundled and not be removable.
OEM: yay, we can be profitable!!!!!
Not one person really thinks the bundled software is of any value, other than the cash the bundling fee generates. If it was illegal for OEM’s to bundle software you’d see even more contraction in the PC OEM market.
Dell SupportAssistant was preinstalled on my machine. It was the easiest way to find Dell's customized driver updates since they are difficult to find (which of the many network drivers does my machine need?). It's sad that it has problems, but it's supposed to make maintenance easier. HP has something similar.
You only have that issue if you search by the model of your PC. For Dell, search by the service tag (short string of letters and numbers) and you will get the drivers for only the hardware that PC shipped with. For HP enter the serial number.
Not withstanding the vulnerability outlined by the article, the concept and utility has merit. For vast amount of users, sorting out chipset drivers is a hard problem.
It may come preinstalled but in this case the author wiped the computer, reinstalled Windows and then voluntarily installed the software while visiting the Dell support site checking for updated drivers. It is also able to be uninstalled which the original comment suggested it could not be.
Dell SupportAssist comes pre-installed on most new Dell machines. The only reason it wasn't installed on my machine is because the drive I used was not prepared by Dell. Your average Dell user will have SupportAssist installed though you are right that it can be uninstalled.
In both the phone and PC space I do not understand the need to do this at all. There is commoditization of the market on the low end, but high end products that compete with iphones and macbooks are definitely not commodity and there is ample differentiation to be had on quality where mindshare can reap substantial margins on a smart investment of good design.
There is no need for this stuff, of course. It's added because marketing want to improve the company's image in the eye of Joe/Jane Consumer, and probably someone in a support organization was honestly trying to make a customer's life easier. It was just implemented poorly.
The day that hardware vendors get over the idea that they need to "add value" to software that they resell will be a very good day for everyone.
Any business (individual persons too!) has at least some conflicting goals and trade-offs to make. E.g., profit now, or profit later? The one in this thread is exactly that sort of trade-off: monetize consumer data vs. optimize for reputation.
It's not like reputation has no value. Reputation is an intangible. You'll be able to put a fairly accurate dollar value on reputation after ruining it, but you should be able to estimate it before trying to ruin it.
Problem is, intangibles have an out-of-sight, out-of-mind effect going on: because you don't see them when putting a dollar value on tangible things, you tend to ignore the intangibles.
Companies often find this out the hard way and end up taking tremendous PR damage. Remember United's PR damage when they had to have cops drag a passenger off the plane because they wanted to "bump" him? Yeah. That sort of thing. Or perhaps the 737-MAX saga. Or any number of such events.
Plus, once it's gotten on the machine, why bother to patch it? You've achieved your goal and it was most likely written to spec by a vendor who has already been paid and moved on.
it's almost a psychology experiment where brands con you just enough and let you absorb the pain long enough that they forgot and start browsing for a new machine, repeating the cycle
But then the engineer in you says "I'll objectively choose the best hardware", and you end up with another lenovo. I really think it is the Windows Wizard Warriors that complain about bloatware, I always wipe it and start with a fresh install.
Somehow I found this the other day when searching for a new laptop. 2 models, identical, one with Windows 10 pre-installed and one FreeDOS (of all OSes!). 100€ cheaper. Perhaps not to everyone, but that's a worthwhile difference to me as a non-Windows user.
The reason they don't apparently is that this supply chain is their bread and butter, and they don't want to mess with it.
But - I feel this is causing them harm in the long run.
I feel that there is a mostly win-win were they to step in and just try to move against the bad shenanigans. I feel that even big companies like Dell, Sony etc. shoot themselves in the foot with this stupidity.
I'm mac 10x years now, strongly looking for change, but I'm wary of that kind of Windows stupidity.
Enterprises will absolutely want nothing to do with this; they’ll have a team that handles endpoint provisioning and management from a gold image & other distribution tools. The endpoints will be as homogeneous as humanly possible because they are all leased in huge bulk orders, so you won’t need a tool for diverse drivers.
Besides, an end user will never have enough permission to download and install a driver - because if they did they’d be in a position to defeat the DLP, VPN posturing, shitty antivirus and disk encryption tools that have to be installed to satisfy the four nearly identical checklists produced by at least as many independent IT security organizations who most likely hired the same auditor multiple times.
Small to mid sized businesses would probably be all over this though.
AFAIK a fair fraction of mid-and-large enterprises use the Intel Management Engine, which seems to be considerably more dangerous than this.
It is "an autonomous subsystem ((...)) incorporated in virtually all of Intel's processor chipsets since 2008. ((One)) can use it to turn the computer on and off, and they can login remotely into the computer regardless of whether or not an operating system is installed. ((It)) always runs as long as the motherboard is receiving power, even when the computer is turned off."
According to the EFF it "has full access to memory (without the parent CPU having any knowledge); has full access to the TCP/IP stack and can send and receive network packets independently of the operating system, thus bypassing its firewall".
I regret if my comment was misconstrued - I'm not claiming enterprises wouldn't use this specific tool because it is dangerous. I'm claiming they wouldn't use this specific tool because it does not fit within the "how do I manage tens of thousands of endpoints while meeting multiple defined and audited security and compliance goals" box.
You might even say that quality and security are orthogonal, at least in this particular case. That might not even be wrong.
Here's an idea:
That would be fantastic.