Mobile manufacturers show ads in ui- realme,xiaomi,samsung.

[Samfisher]

On 1/3/2020 at 3:08 AM, parthm said:

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I know most of you guys outside Asia don't have a lot of Xiaomi or Realme products but even low end Samsung phones have ads in their ui.

Still these are huge companies selling a lot of phones and what worries me is that they could so easily harvest the data to serve users personalized ads!

I don't know if they already do it but just imagine instead of your online activities being tracked now manufacturers track our daily usage to serve us ads. How long until that happens?

 

Realme (spawn of oppo-bbk electronics so vivo,one plus sister company) has now started the ads in ui thing but at least from news sources it seems you can disable them. samsung had also followed xiaomis model of showing ads in the ui. This is a really irritating direction these companies are headed in.

At least in India many people dislike Xiaomi for their ads and they still sell a lot of phones!  If this continues soon consumers wont have a choice of having ad free phones in the low end market. Now, realme also has offerings which compete in the value flagship category along with one plus and xiaomi which aren't exactly cheap so just how much must they earn through ads if they're ready to take all the damage to their brand and reputation from showing ads to consumers? Realme has already called shots on xiaomi for serving ads and now theyre going back on their words.

 

Another aspect to consider is that a person has already paid for the hardware and software that was installed. Can companies now generate revenue after they have sold you the product through software updates like this? It is similar to what linus was talking about in a wan show about tesla cars increasing their speed through a paid software update but at least that has an additional benefit on top of what you have already paid for. I know it allows them to produce phones with extremely thin margins and compete but at what privacy cost to the consumer?
 

Realme is a spinoff from Xiaomi.  They just decided to split their low-mid range phones.