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Sick of all the extra apps clogging up your Android phone? Google’s new Ice Cream Sandwich smart phone software will let you kill any app, including the added extras slapped on there by the manufacturer and your phone network.
That’s good news, as it means unwanted apps will stop eating up your phone’s processing power, or using your data. You can also disable the browser and Gmail, if you wish.
Sadly the offending added apps, colloquially known as bloatware, can’t be removed entirely from your phone, no matter how much you’d like them excised from your life with nary a trace left to show they were ever there. But they can be prevented from running, and removed from the app tray and home screen.
Ice Cream Sandwich is the cutesy codename for Android 4.0, the next generation of Google software for mobile devices. Android 4.0 unites the smart phone smarts of Gingerbread — version 2 — and the tablet-tastic features of Honeycomb — version 3. Click here to see the official pictures of Ice Cream Sandwich in action.
Ice Cream Sandwich makes its first appearance on the Samsung Galaxy Nexus. Nexus-named phones are usually developed with Google’s help as the flagship Android device, so it should be free of bloatware altogether.
We’d be interested to know if the app-disabling option extended to a phone’s added interface. Many manufacturers add their own front end to Android to enhance the look and feel of the phone. HTC’s Sense and Samsung’s TouchWiz add cool extra features, but they can interfere with the standard no-frills Android, especially when it comes to updating to the latest version.
Are you sick of added apps that clog up your phone, or have you never noticed? Tell us your thoughts in the comments below or on our Facebook page.
