They trashed my Android without my permission

[Reverend Conehead]

I had my Samsung phone set up exactly how I want it. I run an app that organizes every app by category. I have folders (or used to) named things like "Travel," "Productivity," "Games," "Language learning," etc., and now all of a sudden all of that is gone. The main page now shows a bunch of crap that I don't want, and they've changed my messaging app from Chomp, which I prefer, to the default Google one.

It blows my mind how clueless big companies can be about customer service. You should never make big changes like this without the customer's permission. I develop free software. One of the rules I've always followed is to only do things with the user's consent. It could be a minor thing like having your installer put an icon on their desktop. You put a choice in the installer that says something like, "Place icon on the desktop," and then you let them choose if they want that or not. They'll never be mad at you if you give them the choice. But stinkin' Samsung rearranged my entire phone without so much as a heads up asking whether I actually wanted it or not.

Services like this exist to benefit the customer. If you have no customer, you have NOTHING. Companies have been doing a lousy job protecting our privacy, and now this. It's not new either. I can't tell you how many times someone has "improved" a product, only to rearrange the interface while adding exactly NOTHING in new value. Now I'm going to have to go through and rearrange my phone to being as much like it was before as possible. I don't know how Samsung thought I would be okay with them destroying what I had spend hours setting up how I like it.

I've had my eye on Graphene OS for a while now. This just pushes me closer to that. If I go to Graphene, I'll need something that works as well as Google Calendar. I've been a bit concerned about trusting Google with my calendar anyway. An electronic day planner like that often contains highly personal information or it could have business info that should remain private.

It looks like my apps are still there. They're just a disorganized mess now. Thanks a lot, Samsung or Android or whoever did this crap. I don't even remember the name of the app that organized all my apps into folders. I'm going to have to figure that out. I'm sure glad I'm not busy with anything else. /S

 

[gtb1943]

I had my Samsung phone set up exactly how I want it. I run an app that organizes every app by category. I have folders (or used to) named things like "Travel," "Productivity," "Games," "Language learning," etc., and now all of a sudden all of that is gone. The main page now shows a bunch of crap that I don't want, and they've changed my messaging app from Chomp, which I prefer, to the default Google one.

It blows my mind how clueless big companies can be about customer service. You should never make big changes like this without the customer's permission. I develop free software. One of the rules I've always followed is to only do things with the user's consent. It could be a minor thing like having your installer put an icon on their desktop. You put a choice in the installer that says something like, "Place icon on the desktop," and then you let them choose if they want that or not. They'll never be mad at you if you give them the choice. But stinkin' Samsung rearranged my entire phone without so much as a heads up asking whether I actually wanted it or not.

Services like this exist to benefit the customer. If you have no customer, you have NOTHING. Companies have been doing a lousy job protecting our privacy, and now this. It's not new either. I can't tell you how many times someone has "improved" a product, only to rearrange the interface while adding exactly NOTHING in new value. Now I'm going to have to go through and rearrange my phone to being as much like it was before as possible. I don't know how Samsung thought I would be okay with them destroying what I had spend hours setting up how I like it.

I've had my eye on Graphene OS for a while now. This just pushes me closer to that. If I go to Graphene, I'll need something that works as well as Google Calendar. I've been a bit concerned about trusting Google with my calendar anyway. An electronic day planner like that often contains highly personal information or it could have business info that should remain private.

It looks like my apps are still there. They're just a disorganized mess now. Thanks a lot, Samsung or Android or whoever did this crap. I don't even remember the name of the app that organized all my apps into folders. I'm going to have to figure that out. I'm sure glad I'm not busy with anything else. /S

there is no such thing as caring about the customer anymore
they know people will buy it

and they do whatever is possible to squeeze the last dollar out of it from everyone

 

[Cowboys5217]

there is no such thing as caring about the customer anymore
they know people will buy it

and they do whatever is possible to squeeze the last dollar out of it from everyone

It's called "en****tification". Blame the Dodge Brothers and an idiotic Court for suing Henry Ford and creating the precedent that publicly traded companies have to pursue infinity dollar growth. One of the worst court precedents ever set in this country, and that I hope is one day overturned.

 

[AsthmaField]

Sometimes malicious home screen apps on Android phones hijack your device by setting themselves as the default home screen to push ads, block uninstallation, or launch overlay attacks.

It could feasibly be one of those. Samsung typically doesn't change all that stuff on a OS update, although I guess it isn’t out of the question.

Look in your apps for anything that might be one of those. Home is usually in the name.

 

[Reverend Conehead]

An update: I've figured this out. Turns out, this isn't on Samsung or on the Android OS they're using. Last night I installed an app that purported to do one thing, but duped you into installing it plus some dumb launcher. They must have done the sly trick of pulling up the install button for some other app, making you think it's the one you chose. So you click on that and it installs some app you didn't want. So I uninstalled both the original app and that launcher crap. So this one isn't Samsung's fault. It was a dirty trick played by someone else. I hate that. They do it on PCs too. You want to install one app, and they dupe you into installing some other dumb thing first. If that happens, I don't want either one.

 

[AsthmaField]

An update: I've figured this out. Turns out, this isn't on Samsung or on the Android OS they're using. Last night I installed an app that purported to do one thing, but duped you into installing it plus some dumb launcher. They must have done the sly trick of pulling up the install button for some other app, making you think it's the one you chose. So you click on that and it installs some app you didn't want. So I uninstalled both the original app and that launcher crap. So this one isn't Samsung's fault. It was a dirty trick played by someone else. I hate that. They do it on PCs too. You want to install one app, and they dupe you into installing some other dumb thing first. If that happens, I don't want either one.

Yeah there’s a lot out there like that.

You should post the name of the app to keep others from making the same mistake.

 

[rags747]

It's called "en****tification". Blame the Dodge Brothers and an idiotic Court for suing Henry Ford and creating the precedent that publicly traded companies have to pursue infinity dollar growth. One of the worst court precedents ever set in this country, and that I hope is one day overturned.

You don’t think that publicly traded companies should pursue infinite dollar growth? Would you invest in a company that did the opposite?

 

[Reverend Conehead]

You don’t think that publicly traded companies should pursue infinite dollar growth? Would you invest in a company that did the opposite?

I'm all for companies making a profit. In fact, they have to or they can't continue. I just think the customer should always come first. You can't make a profit without a customer anyway. What frustrates me is when a company makes some move that will temporarily increase profits, but will piss off their customers. If they do that, they'll have a good quarter, piss off their customers, and then sales will start declining. They'll do worse in the long run as customers start to bail. Customers have a long memory when they've been wronged. I haven't paid money to Microsoft or AT&T for decades because of how bad they treated me.

 

[gtb1943]

I'm all for companies making a profit. In fact, they have to or they can't continue. I just think the customer should always come first. You can't make a profit without a customer anyway. What frustrates me is when a company makes some move that will temporarily increase profits, but will piss off their customers. If they do that, they'll have a good quarter, piss off their customers, and then sales will start declining. They'll do worse in the long run as customers start to bail. Customers have a long memory when they've been wronged. I haven't paid money to Microsoft or AT&T for decades because of how bad they treated me.

Problem is they are all run by Boards who are all about get some for me NOW.
No long term planning allowed.