Apple was not paid by a third party to include it's own software features.
Game Center is like S Voice, a first part developed software that is billed as a "Feature".
Apple has no equivalent to "Pizza Hut" bookmarks that can't be deleted, because they control their carrier relationships better than Samsung who is willing to give their partners the freedom to install and screw up what they want.
Fortunately, Samsung is generally pretty good about letting us users have custom roms, which IMO trumps the Apple advantage for us power users. A custom rom > non-bloated default iOS, to me.
I'll take a pizza ad over Game Center opening up and asking me to make an account every time I play a game, thanks. But unlike the Apple die-hards, I can admit that both a utter crap.
Actually I think that post-Game Center games are much better behaved. Remember what it used to be like to OpenFeint and whatever the other one was that I don't remember the name of? That was far more obtrusive before Apple put in their own version and everyone started using that instead.
>I'll take a pizza ad over Game Center opening up and asking me to make an account every time I play a game, thanks. But unlike the Apple die-hards, I can admit that both a utter crap.
I totally agree and Google's forced G+ integration with the newer G+ Games services is very frustarting too.
No G+ I do not want your crappy me-too social network attached to my gaming apps.
But as is generally the case, I imagine people will hate Apple and love Google for doing the same business practice...
>>Apple was not paid by a third party to include it's own software features.
I'll point you to the Apple weather app with the prominent Yahoo! link at the bottom left. This would be more tolerable if the app itself wasn't terrible. I really wish I could delete Apple's apps, why not come with them installed and let you remove and re-add, say like podcasts.
Samsung is not pretty good regarding community support, here's an in depth story from a former CyanogenMod maintainer for Samsung's Exynos4 based devices (S2/S3/Note/Note2/etc) [1].
For example, emergency calling functionality was broken for a long time and has been reverse engineered only recently [2].
What do you call newsstand? It's a purely magazine advertising service. Would PizzaHut app be acceptable if it was called PizzaStand and allowed you to select from multiple pizza vendors?
Call it FoodStand, let if fill with food vendors in my neighbourhood (preferably those who offer delivery), and I'm all for it.
That would transform PizzaHut from an obnoxious ad ("seller oriented") to a genuinely useful option I would probably use on occasion ("customer oriented").
I dislike intrusive ads (and spending good money on a physical gadget just to be met by "congratulations, and incidentally you've also bought into a lifelong relationship with this pizza vendor" is intrusive).
But I don't mind being told that "newspapers are here, food is over there"; I might even find it useful at some point.
I still think it would be nice if Apple would let me hide the non-deletable apps I don't use: Let me hide the newsstand icon, pop it up again if I ever decide to subcribe to a newspaper.
But the newsstand doesn't grate me the way a permanent link to any particular magazine would. Any particular magazine is unlikely to be my favorite, it might even be one I hate. That doesn't imply that I hate magazines, newsstands, pizza or food in general.
... but still allow me to delete it if I prefer using another food ordering app instead like GrubHub.
The only apps that should not be deletable are core apps like settings and the app store.
Even those should be deletable if it asks you to designate another app on your phone as the replacement for that core service. That replacement app should be API compatible with the data store of the phone itself.
I should be able to replace Apple Maps with Google Maps. Camera with any number of other Camera apps. Photos with any other local photo browsing app. Calendar with something like Fantastical. Weather with something like Yahoo Weather. etc. etc.
I'm on a 5S - was trying to do it via iTunes, but I may not have the newest version. Of course, that bug mentioned might be a problem. That aside, I can do it via phone. Thanks for the heads up.
