Samsung forum: How to de-junk Smart Hub / Smart TV

Dear HDTech,

It looks like you completely missed the point

You should be able to customise stuff not least to make navigation more efficient - just look at any OS - less junk is good thing. Nobody likes loads of useless stuff they're not interested in to get in the way of the parts they want to keep.

<i>"If you have pictures or examples of what you feel are beyond acceptable
standards, such as "this would never be a movie jacket or on a marquee
outside a theater", please take a photo, upload it, and paste the link
here"
</i>
You're kind of missing the point here too. It's not just about whether stuff is offensive. Chocolate at the check-out of a supermarket is not offensive per se, it's that it's not helpful to parents to put it there just because the kids are going to fixate upon it.

If you choose to place something called "My Videos" prominently on the screen, any 7-10 year old may well think those are indeed "our videos" and start clicking on them expecting to be able to play them. Lo and behold, they are confronted with mainstream titles, posters and synopses which are not for them - whether they are corrupted by them or not is totally not the point.

The whole point here is it should be possible to get rid of the annoying stuff that you're not interested in, instead of having it distract you and potentially upset your kids.

This is a very basic concept of good design. You're not going to make many people buy your TVs more just because you have advertising for lovefilm, etc. For those who don't use these services it's just junk. For those who do - they already subscribe. I'm sure these guys are subsidising these apps in the hope they will lead to more subscribers, but you should know better than to push this stuff so crudely

You should learn from what happened with operator sponsored pre-loaded mobile phone and PC apps and "trial/bloatware" - people go to great lengths to remove them and it ends up creating negative feelings about the brand

It's going to take awhile for makers to get the message. Just today I read a very nice (scathing) article about the Microsoft Windows Phone 7.

I can't use that because the draconian thing didn't allow for us to put our company app on it without Microsoft's approval.

That alone was the killer for us. It's also one of those things where you get uninstallable preinstalled apps for about the same reasons above.

Take all this above and add a lot of salt as the makers learn what the consumers want.
Bob

I fully agree with leopold55. If I can't find a way to remove unwanted apps, we are ditching the "Smart"TV. At least I can keep the speakers.

It should and must be possible to uninstall those preinstalled apps that the user finds pointless.
Samsungs Smart TV is not a hit in my country and part of the reason is the lack of flexibility of the Smart hub. Thats not Smart,thats Dumb. Give us a tool to get rid of the crap.

"Tivoization"

You also see this in cell phones, pads and now PCs.
Bob

We recently purchased a top of the line Samsung Smart TV. But as a previous posted well stated this is a "dumb" tv. I would happily take this product back if I could, as all the Preloaded apps are junk for our family. Samsung needs to wise up and give customers the ability to customize the TV they purchased with the apps they want.

We stopped buying PC products years ago as they would also come preloaded with bloated unnecessary software. I am sure Samsung gets paid to promote and install those apps, which as the consumer we are paying for useless, annoying, crap that we personally would not choose to install. Everyone has their own personal preferences, forcing customers to put up with this is inexcusable in this day and age of technology.

I would be happy to share our experience with the Samsung TV on all the forums I can.

I agree entirely with leopold55. I have just bought a UE40ES5500 with SmartTV hub. At first everything was OK until I connected it to the ethernet at which point it upgraded and pushed unwanted apps onto my television. I do not want Lovefilm etc. This should be my decision, not down to a contract between Samsung and Lovefilm. I did not buy my TV for Samsung to push adverts and unwanted services into my home. It is certaintly possible from a technical perspective to remove them, Samsung just need to LISTEN to their customers and act. I'm in no doubt that many others feel the same even if they do not voice their opinions so loudly. Of course Samsung's decision to force these services is NOTHING TO DO WITH WHAT CUSTOMERS WANT, it is more likely about the financial benefits Samsung gain from pushing these pay services.
My solution for now: Disable the SmartTV option and connect a raspberrypi to one of the video inputs. I can then control what online "apps" can be accessed. OK if you are an engineer, but I feel sorry for all the other disapointed buyers who cannot easily do this.

I'm not an engineer, but can enlist the help of a few friends that are. Any links or suggestions on how to manually control the apps? I am primarily interested in Netflix and Pandora.
Thanks for any help.

I'd start my own, new discussion.

I totally agree with leopold55 ... there should be someway for the owner of the TV to customise their Smart Hub to how THEY want it !!

Yes, all the apps should be removable. We need to make Samsung understand this. Another problem with junk apps is that the update process - which happens too often, by the way - removes all the apps, and in my case it takes forever to install them again, as my Smart TV (UE40ES6800) will only install one app at a time. To install the next one I need to turn the TV off and on again. Nobody has been able to help me with this problem so far. I wonder if anybody else is experiencing the same?

It would also be very nice if updates could be disabled, so that it only occurs when you ask for it (via Tools). Why do I have to suffer with the tortuous update process, when I am happy with the current version of the apps?

One of my unwanted "recommended apps" is Google Maps. Now, I can't see any time that I will want navigation advice from my TV - it is a bit big for my car dashboard. But in any event, clicking through it gets the notice that the app has been discontinued.

So if it is no longer working, why wasted memory and screen space by having it in "recommended apps"?

Ultimate in dumbness.