Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

"the newly bought mobile phone has 15% memory usage." never used its own App, but he pushed ads to me every day. "I've always wanted to uninstall it, but I can't uninstall it." Mobile phone preset software is like a "nail house", taking up the phone's memory, slowing down the phone's running speed, and even inadvertently swallowing up traffic. Users have suffered for a long time, but there is nothing they can do about it.

However, fortunately, at the end of 2022, the notice on further standardizing the preset behavior of mobile intelligent terminal applications (hereinafter referred to as "the notice") jointly issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the State Office of Network Information and Information Technology (hereinafter referred to as "the notice") shows that from January 1, 2023, production enterprises should ensure that all preset applications in mobile intelligent terminals, except basic functional software, can be uninstalled, and provide safe and convenient ways to uninstall them.

Among them, the "basic function software" includes the basic components of the operating system: system settings, file management; applications that ensure the normal operation of intelligent terminal hardware: multimedia recording; basic communication applications: answering phone calls, sending and receiving text messages, address books, browsers; application software download channel: application store.

As soon as the policy comes out, like a "nail lifter", it removes a lot of unnecessary App for mobile phone users. After testing Huawei, vivo, OPPO, Xiaomi, Glory and other mainstream brand phones, a reporter from the IT Times found that the preset software for most brand phones can be uninstalled by themselves, but some of the preset software in a few brand phones cannot be eradicated.

01. Standard preset App, there are still three major problems. According to the figure, more than 80% of the smartphones used by 38.1% users cannot be uninstalled. Among them, "rarely used" accounted for 66.8%, "never used" accounted for 27.9%, and "used frequently" accounted for only 5.3%.

Recently, after testing Huawei, Xiaomi, Glory, vivo, OPPO and other domestic mainstream brand new phones, a reporter from the IT Times found that there are still three major problems in standardizing the preset App of mobile phones.

First, there are a large number of preset App. The number of preset App for new phones of domestic mobile phone brands is usually between 20 and 50. In a newly released folding screen mobile phone by a certain brand, except for the mobile brand's own App applications such as music, short video, and butler, third-party software such as Weibo, Douyin and bilibili can take up almost the whole screen, and the number is more than 50, the most of all mobile phones tested by reporters.

Second, it is not convenient to uninstall. In particular, when uninstalling the App that comes with the mobile phone brand, some can not be uninstalled directly on the mobile desktop and need to be operated in the "Application Management" function interface of "Mobile phone Settings". In comparison, Xiaomi and Glory are more humane in this respect. They can be uninstalled by pressing the desktop App icon for a long time. In the newly released Xiaomi 13 new machine, the trial machine has installed more than 40 pre-installed App. Except for the eight essential basic functions of phone, SMS, camera, contact, file management, system settings, application store and browser, all other software can be uninstalled independently. The choice is given to the user to the maximum extent.

Third, some App stubbornly cannot be uninstalled. In some brands of mobile phones, music, video and theme App are still in a "grey area" and are regarded as "basic functional software" and cannot be uninstalled. A source from a mobile phone brand said that consumers are not advised to forcibly uninstall the music and theme App for the time being, otherwise it may lead to system errors, and the brand expects to be able to separate the software and allow users to uninstall it themselves in April 2023.

It is worth mentioning that the original mobile phone "advertising pop-up window" shopping malls, game centers and other App, are now the major mobile phone brands into the "can uninstall" ranks, it has to be said that this is a positive step taken by mobile phone manufacturers.

02. Mobile phone users clapped and applauded, "I spent money on a clean new phone, and those preset software occupied the whole screen and were almost useless, which always made me feel like I had bought a second-hand phone." Yu Xuan (a pseudonym) from Guangzhou told reporters that the first step in buying a new phone is to uninstall all the software on the desktop and download it from the app market as needed. For software that cannot be uninstalled and not used, she will drag it into a new small folder and close all notifications. "although the steps will be a little cumbersome, at least they will save 4G~5G space and will be much more refreshing to use." Yu Xuan's approach is no stranger to many domestic mobile phone users.

Reporters also use their own mobile phones for testing, in the case of emptying all data information, the music software that comes with the mobile phone takes up 523MB, the video takes up 297MB, and the browser takes up 431MB. These three softwares alone take up more than 1G of memory, plus other preset vendor tools and third-party software, and a few gigabytes of space is gone.

According to a survey conducted by the DCCI Internet data Center in 2016, there are nearly 10 preset apps per Android phone, occupying 634.4m of storage space, of which 2.8% are uninstallable, 79.5% will turn on automatically, and 74.9% will automatically consume traffic.

For young users like Yu Xuan, they know the importance of uninstalling and cleaning the cache in time, but older users know nothing about it. Chen Ping (not her real name), a 73-year-old from Liuzhou, Guangxi, got a new 128G mobile phone last year, but now there is only 14G of space left to use. She told the IT Times that she usually browses short videos, check the official Wechat account, and occasionally watch dramas after learning to use Tencent Video. She basically doesn't use other software, and I don't know why the phone is getting slower and slower.

When the reporter opened her mobile phone, she found that there were many kinds of software, such as novels, music, shopping, games, and so on, and there were several software of the same type, among which games that the elderly did not use at all took up as much as 28.59 gigabytes of memory. To investigate the reason, previously, the third-grade grandson secretly downloaded nearly five game applications through the "game center" App, while "the game center" could not be uninstalled all the time. Even if the games in the phone were uninstalled, he would still come back. " Chen Ping said.

Through the "IT Times" reporter test, the current Huawei, Xiaomi, vivo and other mainstream brands of mobile phones in the "game center" can be uninstalled on its own.

03, preset App "release", mobile phone manufacturers' profits shrank as early as 2016, the "interim regulations on the Administration of Mobile Smart Terminal Application Software preset and Distribution" issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology pointed out that standardize the application software preset behavior of mobile smart terminal production enterprises, as well as the mobile application software distribution services provided by Internet information service providers.

In February 2022, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued a circular on further standardizing the preset behavior of mobile intelligent terminal applications (draft for soliciting opinions) to solicit opinions from the public. Finally to the mobile phone preset App this "stubborn disease" to prescribe "prescription".

Finally, the Circular issued in December 2022 clearly pointed out that the preset behavior of mobile intelligent terminal application software should follow the principles of compliance with the law, user supremacy, safety and convenience, and minimum necessity, and according to the requirements of who is preset and responsible, implement the main responsibility of the enterprise, respect and safeguard users' right to know and choose in accordance with the law, and protect the legitimate rights and interests of users.

Why is it so difficult to manage the preset software that everyone "hates"? An insider in the mobile phone industry said that China's mobile phone market is mature and strong, and the competition is very strong. Preset App is one of the channels for mobile phone manufacturers to make profits, and this part of the profits are often used to subsidize and drive down the final price of new phones to enhance their competitiveness.

According to the above-mentioned insiders, the price of a pre-installed App is usually 5-10 yuan, and the specific price fluctuates according to the sales volume of the mobile phone brand. According to the calculation of more than 10 third-party App pre-installed on a mobile phone, it can bring a profit of 100 yuan for each mobile phone. At the same time, the App of mobile phone brands such as music, video, games and shopping malls is a very important application ecological field, which can also bring considerable current income and future development space for mobile phone brands.

It can be seen that it is not easy to let mobile phone manufacturers give up and "untie" the preset App. So, how should preset software specification governance be implemented?

The commentary said that the announcement is only the starting point, and standardizing the preset application software for mobile smart terminals requires the joint efforts of regulatory authorities and content providers. On the one hand, synchronously revise the supporting standards and norms, strengthen the standard guidance; on the other hand, improve the whole chain supervision system of application software. Make joint efforts from the application software preset and distribution and other links, strengthen security testing in the network link, strengthen application software management in the operation link, and promote the safe, orderly and healthy development of the mobile Internet and intelligent terminal industry.

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: IT Times (ID:vittimes), by Shen Yibin

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