Since everyone’s shouting about it, might as well share my thoughts too. Mainly because Reddit has gone berserk, calling for all sorts of boycotts.
Just like everyone else, I wouldn’t like Nothing to go the bloatware way, but what I’ve seen with Glance, the approach that Nothing has taken as a first step, in giving the user the option to turn it off, and Akis’ explanation about adding third-party apps is rather crystal clear. If you’ve ever used a Xiaomi or any of the devices by BBK Electronics, you would know just how terrible it is with those devices and a lot of others as well, where the ADs are embedded almost everywhere throughout the phone. That’s one of the reasons those phones sell so much at a budget price.
All I’m saying is, adding a third-party function to the lockscreen but giving the users the option to turn it off, this is exactly how it should be retained by Nothing going forward. As for third-party apps that future budget devices could come loaded with, as Akis mentioned, if they’re apps that we’ll eventually install anyway and if we can always uninstall them, I don’t get the uproar against it.
As someone that’s running a business, I’m purely speaking from a business point of view: to make money by keeping the costs of mid-rangers down, a lot of brands take the bloatware path but as long as Nothing retains the option in the user’s hands to turn off these features, while keeping the costs of phones down, I say that’s alright.
Remember, this is only coming to non-flagships and we Indians compromise a lot already when it comes to buying a quality mid-ranger while being OK with ads and a ton of third-party bloatware. Nothing could have been much worse, they’re not, at least not yet.
Don’t hate me for this, I’m not defending Nothing’s decision, I’m just saying the uproar is a bit too much considering all that I’ve tried to explain above.
