AT&T ditches Google Search on Android in favor of Yahoo!
March 2, 2010 | by Chris Smith
AT&T’s first Android device is coming down the pipeline next week, the Motorola Backflip, for $99 on a 2-year contract on March 7. Other than being disappointed with the industrial design of this device there might be something else to complain about. A recent hands-on by Engadget’s Chris Zeigler found that all of the default Google search was taken out of the device and replaced with Yahoo search (which will use Bing soon enough). Let me repeat that; all Google search is taken out of AT&T’s Android device in favor of Yahoo search.
Is anyone else shocked by this? It seems that there are some type of deals going on behind the scenes between AT&T and Yahoo (possibly Microsoft). This wouldn’t surprise me as much if this were on any other device than an Android, but having Google search as the standard search is one of the ways that Google can monetize their free mobile OS. The more Android devices, the more Google searches, the more ad revenue.
Also some of the default Android applications are going to be stripped from the OS in favor of AT&T services / applications. If this is what a non-Google Experience device looks like on AT&T, an abomination of carrier/business partner/device manufacturer packaged into a heaping pile of of bad device design I am sure that I don’t want any part of it. Hopefully, the Moto Backflip will be easily “root-able” so users can restore it to it’s Android goodness.
Via [Android and Me] Source [Engadget]
yuck! The Google experience is one of the best parts of my Android phone!
ATT sucks.
wow thats a disapoint turn on events. Why put android of the phone if you where going to degrade it so .. Its relationship to Google is one of the thing I adore about my phone.
Yahoo! is still in business?
Google's pretty mellow about their OS software's usage, I imagine they're not too worried. Plus, it's not really Google's OS: they freely turned it over to the Open Handset Alliance.
As the responses here indicate, AT&T isn't doing themselves any favors by making a product that directly invites comparisons to the more standard Android implementations.
Seems like AT&T wants to take advantage of the Android name to sell phones, but cripple it to push their own apps and partnerships. I hope enough people are vocal about this before other companies start thinking this is something they should do too.
My recent post Seriously…ladies…
Dont buy AT&T products.. problem solved. They will get the message
another reason im liking the n1 over the desire for verizon…i need the google experience phone. i mean shit, I WANT A GOOGLE EXPERIENCE!
I think the point is to make android seem bizarre, and send people running for the iPhone.
ATT is going to do whatever it takes to make sure the iPhone remains on its pedestal. The iPhone will loose out in the end and so will ATT.
lolz at&t is fuckin up, I was waiting on an android phone to ship to them and this is what they do with it…. good thing I already got tired of waiting and got an n1