Mr. Gascón said that, based on e-mails he had reviewed between a Samsung executive and a software developer, it appeared that the carriers were unwilling to allow Samsung to load the antitheft software. The emails, he said, suggest that the carriers are concerned that the software would eat into the profit they make from the insurance programs many consumers buy to cover lost or stolen phones.
Wow.
How are US carrier practices not being investigated for anti-competitive behavior?
This is why I’m so happy to support anything the takes control away from the mobile carriers.
This makes me so glad that Apple is so popular that the carrier wouldn’t fuck with them.
A mound of lobbying dollars, that’s how. :/
Unlocked FTW!
Reading the background info, Samsung’s solution is to place a third party app on all its phones with a fee for service. Were I a carrier, I’d balk too; why should Samsung’s choice of software supplier trump that of the carrier?
Apples solution bypasses the carrier – it is baked into the OS, and managed through iCloud. Unlike the Samsung solution which wipes your phone but does not render it unusable, Apple renders the phone useless to unauthorized users until unlocked by the owners ID / password pair.
Two very different situations.
It’s called deregulation, it’s bought with lobbyists and PAC money, and it’s been going on for decades. Affluent Libertarians call it the “free market,” but only when they’re profiting from it.
Exactly – Samsung’s solution requires a $30 annual subscription to a service; Apple’s is, umm, baked in.
Where does it say Samsung was charging $30? I didn’t see anything about that in the article.
Why they are including something Android already has is beside me though. Par for the course on their further duplicating Android functionality.
Don’t know how all of you can not tell the difference between a device wipe and a kill switch. The former erases the data on a phone. The latter turns it into a brick.