Vodafone have changed my Market Place App without my permission.

[TonyHine]

I have just had a very interesting chat with of Vodafone representative about recent changes they have made to my mobile phone without my permission. The chap sounded defensive and tried to put the onus back on me to sort out the problem.

My phone began behaving oddly a couple of days ago, when I finished a call I would take the phone away from my ear expecting to see a button allowing me to end the call, however all I could see was a blank screen, I had to press the on off button to display the control allowing me to end the call.

The other odd thing is that all of the widgets have vanished from my screens. I have a big gaping hole in amongst the shortcuts where my clock widget used to be displayed.
It was then that I noticed on the "marketplace" the button I used to use which would take me to "my apps" has been replaced with a button called "Vodafone".

Now please correct me if I'm wrong, but I would imagine that the "marketplace" is not an application which belongs to Vodafone, and here they've gone in and made a change to it, at least they should have had the decency to let me know they were planning to make this change, and they should give me the option to refuse, and or revert back to what I had before.

My assumption is that their addition of this "Vodafone button" to the marketplace application has caused other changes to my phone which they do not appear to be able to reverse. The solution offered by the Vodafone representative was that I would need to back up my phone to my computer and then reinstall everything, in his opinion a 10 minute job!

In my experience this is not a 10 minute job, it will take me several hours, and I am definitely not happy about it!

My wife has exactly the same phone as mine and she has exactly the same problem, her marketplace has also been modified I assume by Vodafone, and her widgets have also disappeared.

Acknowledging they have made a mistake and an apology would be nice in the first instance, and some sort of compensation from Vodafone would be really nice, although I doubt it will be forthcoming!

Both my phone and my wife's phone are Samsung Nexus S

http://www.ecademy.com/node.php?id=165922

 

[takeshi]

Where was this icon replaced (home screen, app drawer, dock, etc)? Is the Market app actually removed or was a shortcut just changed? It would help to know exactly what they did. The post really doesn't provide enough information. Even if they made the change without your authorization I'm not sure what you're expecting from this forum.

 

[TonyHine]

>>>Where was this icon replaced (home screen, app drawer, dock, etc)?<<<

There is an android application called "marketplace" the button Vodafone have changed is actually part of the application itself.

I would like to post some screenshots from the phone, is that at all possible? If it is possible I do not know how to go about this? Is there any way of obtaining screen shots from the phone?

>>>I'm not sure what you're expecting from this forum.<<<
I&#8217;m not really expecting anything, I think it&#8217;s an important point that people should know that changes can be made to your phone applications without your permission from people other than Google.

I&#8217;m just annoyed really just wanted somewhere to vent my annoyance, hopefully in a place where it could do some good.


Thank you for your help in this matter
cheers Tony.

 

[A.Nonymous]

I can't see any connection between the market and the disappearing widgets. Google updates the market all the time and unless there's a change in how it looks, 99.9% of people never ever notice. I found a setting in there to block apps based on content the other day. I would swear it was not there several months ago when I looked for a similar setting. Clearly Google updated my market without my consent and without my knowledge. I'm not complaining about it though.

Anyway, back to the point it's not unusual at all for the market to get update, nor is it unusual for carriers to put their branding on the market. I've got a VZW apps tab on my Market on my phone. I just ignore it. Now the text messages they send me telling me to buy VZW navigator are a different story, but that's another post.

I personally don't see any way that an updated market could make widgets disappear from the home screen. An OTA update? Sure. An updated market? No. If you're convinced that is the cause though you can easily go into applications and uninstall the update.

 

[zuben el genub]

Can any carrier use a branded version of Market?
I know I can sort by carrier - there is a tab on the computer version of market that says TMO.

 

[A.Nonymous]

Can any carrier use a branded version of Market?
I know I can sort by carrier - there is a tab on the computer version of market that says TMO.

I know that on my VZW phone, the market has a tab for VZW apps. They're all crap and I've looked at it maybe twice, but it's all there.

 

[TonyHine]

>>> I can't see any connection between the market and the disappearing widgets.<<<

I am making the assumption because it has happened on two phones at the same time. It may not be the change to the market app, but it is a strange coincidence....

 

[Roze]

Both my phone and my wife's phone are Samsung Nexus S

It's the Nexus S, a pure Google Phone and should not have any carrier branding or mingling with it unless Google allowed the carrier to brand the Nexus S. I don't think this is the case with the Nexus S (unlike some of the Nexus One) and I have not READ this anywhere online. It would have been (big) news if this was the case.

Only reason I'd think is that the carrier didn't pay Google the licensing fee to use the Market for the Nexus S and Google took the market off and Vodafone market was put on instead. I've seen Android Phones with both the Google Market and the carrier market on it. So what you're saying is just strange.

I am thinking that you have NO apps that you downloaded from the market when you open the app drawer? What about the stock apps like Google Map, Google Navigation, etc. These are Google own software (not open source) and must be licensed.

I've read some carriers don't want to pay the licensing fees and thus have no Google applications on their phones, including the market.

Have you done a factory reset? No market?