Android Smart Phones and Google's Partners

Discussion in 'General Science & Technology' started by danshawen, Aug 23, 2014.

  1. danshawen Valued Senior Member

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    3,951
    My wife and I upgraded to 'smart' android telephones a little over a year ago.

    At the time we purchased these, Google was coordinating a software integration and standardization effort which meant, among other things, that Android Software Developers and their sponsors would receive support, updates, and an infrastructure which gave them access to valuable marketing and demographic data from user's phones, courtesy of having Google as a partner. Sounds good, right?

    Well, it's not. The function of the 'Google Play Services' App, is something that I can easily disable and uninstall on my own model htc evo V 4g phone, but it is basically not customizable or uninstallable on models industry wide. Let me tell you why that isn't a good thing.

    Under ice cream sandwich (and I have no idea if this carried through to kitkat), the Google Play Services app is by far the busiest app on the phone. If you let it install and operate according to the defaults, Google partners can and do individually access their Google sponsored apps to get data about where you go, what businesses you are near, whether your emails are being monitored, or whatever. As a result, I typically get ads for businesses close to places I visit, and products related to things I purchase. But it takes energy from my mobile battery in order for the phone to do so. Some of the ads I got have been downright presumptive and frankly insulting. This happy advertising nonsense was typically sapping away half my battery life in less than half the time it would have lasted if I either left the thing in the airport mode (in which case, it is useless as a telephone, in an emergency or otherwise), or my only other option is to keep uninstalling the app and reinstall it only when the phone function becomes unstable.

    There seems to be no effort by Google's "partners", nor by Google itself to rectify the situation. I've considered going back to something like a "dumb" mobile phone, but really, who wants to do that? Most likely, my next mobile device will be from Apple, which has more sense than to compromise a telephone subscriber's most vital mobile device function and battery life for the sake of co-opting and leveraging advertiser support.

    As for myself, I'm only happy about my mobile phone performance with Google and its partners shut off. Most recently, I had expected that limiting their access to WiFi only would help some, but it didn't. There are still times when dozens of apps insist on "updating" and running the battery charger current to the max, WiFi or no. This turns a mobile device into something you either must keep plugged in all the time, or else risk losing phone function when you need it most. Most people will agree, this is not something you would choose to pay for, given the option to pay a little more and not worry about such things.

    This post is primarily to help other mobile device users become a little more savvy about the things their mobile devices are doing, and vote with their $$$ the next time they make a choice about a mobile device and who supports it. Or are there any better solutions to this modern problem, other than what I have suggested?
     
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  3. Aqueous Id flat Earth skeptic Valued Senior Member

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    I've been using Google Play apps with Androids and none of what is bothering you bothered me. I prefer the market sponsored apps for the endorsements that they are probably malware free. They seem to be pretty good about identifying all the permissions they need before asking you to accept. I'll do a trial run on freeware and if the app tries to spam me I normally shitcan it. There are usually plenty of alternatives to choose from. Also note, you can opt out of automatic syncing if that bothers you. There is a standard news & weather widget which I sometimes use. So when I need it, I turn the auto sync option on. I usually keep my accounts sync'd but if for some reason it's hogging bandwidth I'll disable them too. Every once in a while I purge all the apps I haven't lately used. As for the stuff I hang onto, if it gets behind on updates, then the next time I don't need the bandwidth I'll start them updating and let it run its course.

    One more thing about privacy. Brick & Mortar retailers can sniff out your MAC address whenever you enter their premises with your device On and not in Airplane Mode. They can track your activity before eventually doing a little more specific phishing of their own. It doesn't matter whether you use Android or Google or neither. So you might have unwittingly given out your MAC addresses and been tracked that way.

    But you're not usually obligated to go through Google Play. But don't assume that the app is getting any of your information from Google. Once you install an app, you've already acknowledged the risk of exposure. The point is, you can be phished with or without Google and with or without Android. As far as I've seen, Google Play at least seems to be the logical way to mitigate that risk.

    The other thing is that if you use all the Google apps you're basically reducing your exposure (once Google knows you you have nothing to lose). That reduces your exposure since it reduces the stuff you need. How about banking apps? To me that's one of the big advantages of a smart phone. And the banks already know your life story. So there is little or nothing else divulged by using bank apps.

    What you're talking about is pretty universal. Have users sometimes unwittingly given personal info away? Sure. Can they do more to avoid it? Of course.

    I don't get any of the bothersome invasions you're getting so I suspect you can take measures against it. And I don't have any background updating or syncing bothering me; if it does, I disable it.
     
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  5. Russ_Watters Not a Trump supporter... Valued Senior Member

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    5,051
    I'm not sure what you are talking about - are you getting pop up ads? I don't. I like my phone. And Google services use only a small part of my data bandwidth.
     
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  7. danshawen Valued Senior Member

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    3,951
    Yes, I get popup ads, and I don't mind those, because they demand very little bandwidth while I am using the free apps they go with. As soon as I disabled the Google Play Services app that administers the partner updates, my battery life quadrupled. This has happened three times, so it's no fluke. I start having battery issues, force stop, clear data and uninstall Google Play Services, wait until something else I need stops working, reinstall GooPlaySvcs, low battery comes back, and I uninstall it again. Google Play Services app is the power hog application for certain. Other folks on Android Central forums corroborated this behavior before I tried uninstalling it. Google partners are mucking up not just bandwidth, but needed battery capacity on what could potentially be a life critical mobile device. There should be a law against abuse of mobile technology like this. There should be a hard limit imposed on how much battery capacity can be wasted on such activities, either by the Android OS itself, or by policing the abusers / hackers who profit by this.

    You may remember that Steve Jobs, before his untimely demise, championed the backlash against Adobe Flashplayer keeping mobile devices active, killing advances in battery capacity and life for no good reason. This is the same thing, only Google doesn't have anyone like Jobs to go to bat with their partners against such abuses of mobile devices.
     
    Last edited: Aug 24, 2014
  8. Aqueous Id flat Earth skeptic Valued Senior Member

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    6,152
    dan,

    This is a science forum so let's focus on the technical piece and you can split the rest out to some other forum if you wish to do so.

    Here is a suggestion on how to organize a plan of attack. Try enumerating all the steps you can take to resolve the issue. For example:


    etc.
     
  9. Russ_Watters Not a Trump supporter... Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    5,051
    What are "partner updates"? And exactly how much battery life are you talking about? And are you having issues with slow apps? When I look at my battery life monitor, Google services is not one of the top users of battery (unless I haven't done anything else on the phone for a while). I'm not having the problems you are having and no one I know has them -- they aren't the typical user experience. Think about it: if it were typical, no one would want to use google phones!

    I don't get pop-up ads except rarely when I install a bad app (which I promptly uninstall). If you are getting them, that's indicative of a problem with bad apps, which may also be causing your other problems. I would suggest doing a hard-reset of your phone, being careful not to install any apps for a few days, to see how the phone acts. Then install them slowly to make sure you can identify any that are causing problems. Also:

    Check your battery and data use monitors (both google services) and verify exactly what is using the most battery and data. You can also check actual real-time processor use.
     
  10. danshawen Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,951
    The forum heading is 'General Science and TECHNOLOGY'. Granted, that last item doesn't show up very much in postings. Perhaps technology should be split off?

    My wife and I tried lots of other approaches, including both of us upgrading to double capacity batteries. Not much help. For a while, I was a battery engineer, including work with some of the latest "smart" batteries, and before that I was a telecom engineer for over 22 years during which time we did quality of service tests for virtually all of the world's cellular voice and data carriers making the technology we all carry in our pockets now possible.

    I'm an avid fan of the development of smart phones and associated safety issues for as long as I've been a member of IEEE (a very long time). I can usually tell when a telecom technology is doing something it shouldn't. Most consumers can't, unfortunately. Don't bother complaining to Google about it. They seem to be deaf to complaints about they way they are running their operation.
     
  11. Aqueous Id flat Earth skeptic Valued Senior Member

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    6,152
    Technology is fine. My thoughts are to keep this technical.

    As a seasoned electrical engineer with battery and telecom experience you should be telling us what the problem is !!

    You didn't comment on the technical content of my post so I'm confused about the purpose here. Did you have anything else to say about the process of troubleshooting? Any remarks about the 2 scenarios I suggested to get the ball rolling? First, isn't it logical to run some diagnostics and collect the results? And second, do you have anything to say about the relationship between location updating and power consumption? I was thinking this layout would lead to some brainstorming to track down the issue and resolve it.
     
  12. danshawen Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,951
    That's what I'm trying to do, and I'm doing that in part because Google doesn't listen to anything but their wallets.

    The story hit the Washington Post this morning. To those who haven't read it, there's an object lesson on how mobile technology is not always a blessing.
     
  13. Russ_Watters Not a Trump supporter... Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    5,051
    You mean you are trying to track down the issue to resolve it? Then why aren't you responding to the technical content of our posts? Frankly, your posts just read like unfocused rants.
    If the one I found is the one you are referring to, "the story" has nothing to do with yours.
     
  14. danshawen Valued Senior Member

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    3,951
    No matter who tracks your phone or for what purpose, it keeps GPS going to track your location, and other applications I never signed up for. I watched them regulate this stuff (badly) for decades. What they finally ended up with leaves a lot to be desired. I know what I'm talking about. It won't get better if nobody demands it, and they aren't listening to me.

    It's everyone's problem, not just mine.
     
  15. Russ_Watters Not a Trump supporter... Valued Senior Member

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    5,051
    You most certainly did sign up for it: Nobody forced you to buy a cell phone. But again, this has nothing to do with the problem you are experiencing. So again: unfocused rant?
     
  16. danshawen Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,951
    I checked the location updates and turned off several of them after noting the various listed items for what is consuming the most battery power.

    Here are some numbers to ponder:

    "Cell usage" and "Phone Idle" were the highest users, about 30% each. This is with Google Play Services re-enabled. Buried within these two items alone is about 20% of the battery capacity wastage you claim that I am ranting about.

    My total usable life of the battery (standard capacity, 3 months old) is a little over 4 hours with a 99% charge. This is the amount of time it can typically go without plugging it into a charger. That isn't very much reserve capacity. Perhaps now you can understand why, if I have 20 apps installed and each of them only uses 5 min per day downloading and "updating" over the phone network (which is really data collection), my reserve battery capacity drops by 1/3 and I no longer have a mobile device that is actually "mobile".

    The method suggested here requires me to tweak eight or 10 menu items to customize the way I want my phone location and usage monitored. The method I've been using only requires me to access and disable ONE app to restore mobility. This is not an "unfocused" procedure. It is extremely "focused". It is Google and the Android developers that are "focused" on something other than practical mobility and consumer satisfaction.

    In addition to the battery problem, my carrier either has a bad cell tower transponder (I know where it is-- because there's an app for finding that), which means that I can only hear about every other word on my mobile phone when I try to use it from my home location. Everywhere else I actually travel with it, in any direction, the operation is much better. I'll admit that I had not considered that part of my problem could be that the normal 5 minutes per app update per day possibly stretches out to 15 or even 20 minutes when the data they are trying to collect is having as much difficulty as I do with voice communication from my home location. I will look into it. This tracks.

    My wife, whose phone has a higher capacity battery has found that unless she switches to airplane mode while at school, it discharges very quickly, quite possibly for the same reason. Her office is in the basement. You don't see many signal strength bars down there either.

    The problem has a solution; just not anything anyone here suggested. Thanks anyway for your attempts to help. Smartphones and their networks are evidently much dumber than they should be.
     
  17. danshawen Valued Senior Member

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    3,951
    To fix problems with dropped calls, poor reception, etc., you can report your problem(s) to:

    http://www.cellcoverage.com/submitted.asp

    Poor battery life is usually not related to this, but in my case, I bet it was.
     
  18. Russ_Watters Not a Trump supporter... Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    5,051
    Finally, some substance!!

    These numbers tell us that you don't have a "Google Play Services" problem, since "Google Play Services" (or some variant of that name) isn't one of the two highest users of your battery. But also: please explain though what you think is "buried" and how you know it is 20% of the battery capacity "wastage".

    Here's my current phone stats (Razr HD):
    2:57 on battery, 92% capacity.
    52% Android OS
    19% phone idle
    10% cell standby
    6% screen
    5% google services
    5% Android System

    As you can see, I've barely used it since taking it off the charger at work 3 hours ago. At this rate, I'll get about 38 hours of standby. Note: wifi and bluetooth are off. The phone hasn't exactly been idle though, because there are work and personal emails showing in the taskbar, a weather forecast, 2 events and a baseball score.

    2 apps need updating, so I turned-on wifi and updated them. Now I'm at:

    3:03 on battery, 91%
    Android OS: 43%
    Phone idle: 15%
    Screen: 15%
    etc.

    As the big jump in "screen" usage tells you, after not too much usage, the screen will be by far the biggest battery user (that's typical for my phone).

    Please tell us how long yours has been running on battery, how long you talked on it, and what % battery remaining it is.
    Doing what? As I've shown, mine will go more than a day in standby. But under heavy usage (such as with a navigation app running), it's somewhere on the order of 2 or 3 hours. That doesn't have anything to do with any malicious apps or OS, it's just a big, bright screen and a data-intensive navigator.

    It is worth noting that the first of this phone I received was a lemon: after just a couple of months, the battery life dropped drastically. I suspect I got a refurbished battery in my new phone. Since replacement (more than a year ago), the problem has not recurred.
    Your apps update daily and take 5 minutes each to update? If that's true, then you have something very wrong going on. The half-life on my apps is about a week -- meaning if I have 20 (I probably do) I get about 10 updates a week. And they take about 30 seconds each. Annoying if it happens when I'm doing something, but not actually a big problem.
    If you have apps that are doing that, you really should delete them. But FYI, if they are uploading your data, they aren't doing it when supposedly "updating" -- they would never tell you when they are doing it.
    Um....no one suggested such a method and that isn't what I was saying was "unfocused". What is "unfocused" is all the irrelevant stuff you've thrown-into the thread, such as the Washington Post article comment.
    Well that's definitely a common and separate problem. I have a similar problem -- the nearest tower is either too far away or blocked. I bought myself a repeater and that has drastically improved signal reliability in my house.
    May I ask: what proof, exactly, do you have that your problems are related to "data they are trying to collect"?
    Ahh -- we may have hit on the real problem. If your signal strength is really bad at home -- and certainly in a basement it will be really bad -- the phone could be going into high-power mode to search for a cell tower. If it does this, it will drain the battery faster even than if you are talking on the phone. The only way around this is to put it into airplane mode if you are in an area where the signal strength is near zero. I have this issue from time to time and in certain well-known locations of mine.
    The more/better information you provide, the more/better help we can be.

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  19. danshawen Valued Senior Member

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    Thanks, Russ. It's very interesting that your Android battery usage statistics are so different from mine. Android OS usage is not even a line item on mine. If I may ask, are you using ice cream sandwich or kitkat? That makes exactly one other person who has shared that information with me, other than two other tech support calls I made before investigating the source of the problem myself. And you are the only one who shared it without a vested interest in keeping Google partners happy.

    Funny story I can now relate cause it's old news. On a forum related to an organization I am affiliated with (but for some time after the incident I will recount, I was not), an errant comment I made on the subject of the second amendment during the Bush-Cheney administration landed me and my wife with two very nice and well dressed secret service agents at our door who proceeded to search out entire house for evidence that I might be a threat to presidential security. What I actually wrote paled in comparison to remarks made by Ted Nugent about the current one, and was in fact not anything resembling any sort of threat at all. But because Dick Cheney (and I love that guy especially since he got a new heart) happened to have plans to visit Dallas, TX for veteran's day that particular year, this is the treatment I got and probably deserved. At the time it happened, a one-way ticket to Gitmo was not out of the question. For a few flights after that, I was treated to being a "person of interest" as well.

    Although I'm no fan of Ted Nugent's music, I do understand some of his stance on the second amendment. I also voted twice for the president he hates so much, and would do so again. It has nothing to do with the incident I just related. TN still belongs on the permanent no-fly list, as far as I'm concerned. Ted Kennedy was also briefly on that list, you may recall. There's no shame.

    Want to hazard a guess why someone like me might be a little paranoid about what my "smart" cellphone is doing? For four years after leaving my 20 year gig as a telecom engineer, I worked for a small company that serviced the needs of a certain organization identified by three letters and a penchant for big data (and also a Google 'partner'), and I had security clearance. You don't want to know, and I'm constrained by law not to tell you anything about that activity, even if I actually knew anything. They do keep information nicely compartmentalized, to their credit.

    That's about as much information about the incident as I'm willing to share. As the SS agents discovered, I own no firearms or incendiary devices. I won't even store gasoline on the premises that is outside of the tank of a working vehicle or lawnmower. The sharpest weapon I am in possession of is my lightning wit, which as you already know, is not a lethal weapon by any stretch.

    I'm sure my cellphone will work as well as yours does as soon as that errant cell tower transponder is serviced. I am patient.

    Thanks again. Could I solicit your advice Russ? Would you and others here be interested at all in hearing about my near knockdown-dragout with the former president of the IEEE over the issue of cellphone radiation safety? Cellphones are not only much safer these days, but it might have something to do with what I did, and complained loudly about. Better yet, I'm pretty certain that about a decade of near perfect dental checkups can in part be attributed to the effect of the cellphone radiation that used to be next to my delicate audio engineering trained ear being relocated to somewhere closer to my big, fat mouth.

    We already know that "airport mode" works as well as removing Google Play Services. The difference is, with Google Play Services removed, it's still a functional phone.

    Take care, Russ.
     
    Last edited: Aug 26, 2014
  20. Stryder Keeper of "good" ideas. Valued Senior Member

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    13,105
    Simple answer is if you want a communication device with a longer lasting battery go for a pain old dump cell phone without all the programmatic trimmings. (The old models that don't even have camera's on them etc)

    If you pick a "Smart" device it's going to chew power up for more reasons than just the active GPS system (which you can actually turn off). For instance the Samsung S5 is a Quad-core phone, it's actually more powerful than a top end laptop I picked up in 2007. Merge that with a high resolution screen and 4G capacity (The number of frequency used to deal with bandwidth is higher than a standard 2G/3G phone) it's going to burn the battery energy quickly.

    Then of course you can throw all the problems of people hacking the software, proprietary versus jail-breaking and even various companies and unconstitutional's loading spyware onto the network (not just the phone).

    None of this of course matters to someone that likes the Bells and Whistles, or see it as a neat toy etc.

    (Personally I don't use mobiles, I have one (2G) but it's off for the most part, I only use it in emergencies.)
     
  21. leopold Valued Senior Member

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  22. Aqueous Id flat Earth skeptic Valued Senior Member

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    6,152
    Dan,

    Do you not see the contradiction in stating

    followed immediately by


    Stop it. If this were a business meeting I would call security and have you escorted out of the building. You are trolling your own thread.

    It's just a phone, man, not a heart attack. Wrap you mind around the demons, not the other way around. Seriously: get a grip. You sound more like a post-traumatic stress victim than an engineer.

    -----

    HOW TO TROUBLESHOOT A CELL PHONE

    It's probably too late to use this thread like a customer service center. You've pretty well proven you can't handle a typical Q&A type diagnostic analysis. So let's nuke the idea of trying to do something useful (discover the bug that would put you on the front page of WSJ) and just KILL THOSE NASTY DEMONS.

    At this point I would uninstall every app I added to the phone, and restore the settings to factory defaults. I would ensure that the following settings are selected:

    (1) SYNCing OFF
    (2) LOCATION UPDATING - OFF
    (3) APP UPDATING - OFF
    (4) AIRPLANE MODE - ON (WIFI OFF / BLUETOOTH OFF).
    (5) SCREEN BRIGHTNESS - AUTO
    (6) SCREEN TIMEOUT - 10 sec
    (7) RINGER - OFF
    (8) AUDIO LEVEL - 0

    (Did I leave anything out)

    TEST. TEST. TEST.

    If that doesn't get me the performance I expected I would throw that sucker in the trash and go buy a new phone.

    -----

    A LAST WORD

    One last word before you reach for the little bottle of nitroglycerin pills. You are in control of this phone. You installed all the extra crap on it, and you can remove it. You screwed with the settings, and you can put them back where they belong.

    You have the power, Dan. Just keep telling yourself that. Just look at all the wonderous powers you possess:

    -YOU CAN MONITOR THE ACTIVE PROCESSES AND DETERMINE WHICH ONES ARE CANDIDATES TO CONSUMING POWER.

    -YOU CAN KILL THEM, DAN. KILL THEM DEAD.

    -YOU CAN FAMILIARIZE YOURSELF WITH POPULAR DIAGNOSTIC TOOLS. YOU CAN DOWNLOAD THEM, OFTEN FOR FREE. YOU CAN USE THEM, DAN. DAN: WHEN YOU HAVE TOOLS YOU HAVE THE POWER. THE POWER TO KILL NASTY GOOGLE LITHIUM EATING DEMONS.

    -DAN: YOU CAN ROOT YOUR PHONE AND MAKE IT OBEY YOU, AND YOU ALONE. YOU CAN START A LITTLE REVOLUTION IN THE LITTLE PRIVATE WORLD OF YOURS. OUT WITH THE BUMS !! OFF WITH THEIR HEADS !! YOU CAN BECOME SUPREME COMMANDER OF YOUR PHONE, DAN. FEEL THE POWER RUSH THROUGH YOU AS YOU DREAM OF OUTSMARTING GOOGLE ITSELF !!

    So put on the big boy britches and go for it, Dan:

    Prepare.

    Fight.

    Win.



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    Go get 'em, Tiger.

    Geez. If we only had an embedded journalist over at Dan's house. This is history in the making. Kinda brings a tear to the eye.
     
  23. danshawen Valued Senior Member

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    3,951
    That's the spirit. Hey, won't we need secure battlefield communications for that? Better call Lockheed. So I guess it's off to conspiracy theories, followed by the cesspool. Sorry.

    At least, I'm no longer ranting about my old Nokia analog cellphone, which wasn't able to pass a simple microwave leakage test, and because of that was thrown directly into the nearest trash can. Same cellphone the late Johnny Cochran used extensively before his untimely brain cancer death.

    Microsoft / Nokia wanted to gift me their latest smartphone for free for a promotion only last week. Their offer met the same fate.

    Cellphone radiation probably would have made a better technical thread here though.
     

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