Android is an open source operating system, and there are a ton of different UIs which run on top of Google’s mobile OS. That’s actually the beauty of Android, having plenty of options, amongst other things, of course. That being said, we often hear the term ‘bloatware’ mention when talking about certain Android devices / brands. Samsung is definitely one of the most frequently mentioned brands when talking about bloatware, but they’re definitely on the only ones, not by a long shot. That being said, a rather interesting story came from China, read on.
A China-based consumer rights agency based in Shanghai has filed a lawsuit against Samsung and Oppo because of the amount of pre-installed (non-removable) apps on their devices. The two devices that the agency is focusing on is Samsung’s Galaxy Note 3 (SN-N9008S) phablet, and Oppo’s Find 7 (X9007) handset. Interesting enough, up to 20 devices were studied by the Shanghai Consumer Rights Protection Commission, but only these two devices are in the center of attention at the moment. Oppo Find 7 actually has over 70 non-removable apps pre-installed, and the Galaxy Note 3 counts 40 such apps. The Secretary of the commission, Tao Ailian, said that these apps can ‘steal data’ in some cases.
The commission didn’t decide to file this lawsuit out of the blue, they’ve received a ton of public complaints it seems, and the commission is now asking Samsung and Oppo to clearly label which apps are installed and give out instructions how to remove them from respective devices. That’s not all though, they’re also requesting this Chinese and Korean smartphone OEM to inform consumers how much memory these apps take up.
Samsung and Oppo have two weeks to figure out what to do, and then the court is supposed to set trial dates. It seems like this could be a rather interesting case, we don’t really see such cases surface in China that often. We’ll let you know as soon as we get some additional info regarding all this, so stay tuned for that. The ball is in Samsung’s and Oppo’s court at the moment, let’s see what happens next.