Gadgetory

hey guys Joe the Android guy adds advertisements where are they acceptable and where are they not that's what we're gonna talk about in this week's episode of the Android guy weekly so a quick history of Google Google had some free stuff search engine for example Gmail they were free well they were paid for by ads that you had to look at when you were using their products but you didn't have to pay money out of your pocket to use them well all of a sudden Google kind of started putting feelers out for a cell phone os and eventually ended up buying Android they didn't announce any plans with it right away we all know what happened but way back in the day speculation started to fly is Google going to make a phone a Google phone in fact that's what a lot of people thought that g1 was going to be was the Google phone fact we thought the phones were gonna be called g1 g2 g3 all the way up for Google one Google 2 etc etc we know that didn't happen either but that's kind of what we thought in addition there were some rumors that flew that said these phones were going to be free the plans were going to be free or maybe the plans would cost money and the phones would be free or the phones would be free to play whatever essentially free why because people said while Google makes their money off of ads so obviously they're going to make an ad based phone and an ad based operating system we know that didn't happen but that was what speculation and rumor was back in the day now Google does make money off of ads most of the stuff is inside their apps not inside the OS itself Google Maps for example if you want to find a restaurant open up Google Maps or Google Places it's really the same app search for something you're going to get an advertisement or two or three at the top that's relevant to your search just like when you're searching on google.com makes a lot of sense to do it that way right but that's still inside the app and it's an app not in the OS fair enough t-mobile recently had a well an update shall we call it to their account app now this account app is pretty cool it lets you see how many texts you've sent and received how many minutes you've used and how much data you've basically burned through on your plan and it shows you how much usually expect to pay at the end of the month when the billing cycle is up kind of cool bathed in a lot of magenta which I don't particularly like but the application itself is very very nice this recent update however people started reporting some ads and I'm not talking ads because the app is free I'm not talking apps like or ads like we're used to in apps that are at the top or the bottom or both what I'm talking about is ads that were up here in the notification tray so you get a notification that you've had a new ad you pull down your shade here and there would be your advertisement not very cool in fact that sounds awfully reminiscent to what some other people were doing in effort to make more money now app developers have to make money somehow they're not just making these apps out of the goodness of their hearts well maybe a couple of them are but most of the time they want to be compensated for their work and we don't blame them right it's something that they do they want to get paid let's pay them we can either buy their apps with money up front and get an ad-free experience it's the way it's supposed to work or get them for free then pay for them over time by watching their ads and hopefully clicking on them eventually when we get a relevant ad that helps us find a good or a service that we didn't know we needed that's what advertising is all about but t-mobile was doing this in such a way that the ads were showing up even when you weren't running their app this is what another company did this other company basically sold a plugin for lack of a better term to developers to put their ad distribution network inside these developers apps people would then download and install them and because these ads were getting presented in a diff Manor the thought was you get a better click-through rate everybody would be paid more great not a problem except it was a problem you see there are two problems with that distribution metaphor the first problem is that's your notification tray when you pull down that shade you expect to see information that's important not just fluff you expect it to be a new email a new text message calendar appointment you know a chat something like that that needs your attention right away an ad let's face it doesn't need your attention they may want your attention but if you don't look at an ad for 10 minutes or even 10 days no big deal if you don't look at your calendar reminder for 10 minutes you might have a problem if you don't look at it for 10 days you probably missed a bunch of meetings fair enough it's not an appropriate place to put ads first problem second problem those ads run even when the app isn't running that means they have to have something running in the background all the time to present the ads something running in the background all the time to go to the net get the ads download them to your phone using your data I might add and your battery and slowing things down in the process to be able to present those ads to you they're now costing you money to look at those ads that's not cool at all don't do it there was such a backlash over this that I can't name a single app that still uses that distribution mechanism there are probably still some out there I just don't know of any because those are all lower tier apps in my opinion t-mobile has now risen to the lower tier app bar congratulations t-mobile well they started getting a backlash - and they have since apologized saying that it was an error it was a mistake it was kind of a worded like a technical glitch I don't see how crafting an ad that is presented to users could be a mistake a technical glitch somebody had to say let's do this somebody had to actually do it and then it was implemented but that's not the big problem the big problem is now there's an app installed on my phone that's sitting there even when I'm not using it potentially gobbling up system resources and checking the web to see if there is a new ad that I need to get all the time even when there's not the mechanism to display those ads is built into this t mobile app and even though they apologize they haven't at the time of this recording updated it to remove that mechanism and they need to t-mobile is an industry leader because they are a carrier they need to set an example to everyone and that example is ads don't go in the notification bar that app when you're not running it needs to not sit there in gobble stuff so t-mobile thank you for the apology you've got another step to go so that's my rant on ads and apps and apps in ads and ads in outside wow that's confusing but now it's your turn what do you think where our ads appropriate where where would you like to see ads where would you not like to see ads and where should ads never be of course I biased you so you can just say I agree with you or I disagree with you that's fine but put some thought into it and let me know from a consumer perspective from someone who uses apps who uses the OS where would you like to see ads and where would you not and how much is a reasonable amount to pay for an app to get an ad free version that's your homework go ahead and post the comments down below so we know and we can of course participate in this discussion because after all that's what the Android guy weekly is all about it's about the discussion it's about you and it's now your turn to read oh yes and to read the articles about that tee mobile app head on over to pocketnow.com there will be a link down below down there and of course for Pocket nail and the Android guy weekly I'm Joe Levi