Android’s big advantage over other mobile operating systems is the freedom it offers manufacturers to customize the experience; It is therefore ironic that this is also its great disadvantage, especially if we are among those who prefer a clean and light system. It’s no secret that manufacturers put too much garbage into their customization layers; to the point that there are already brands that boast of putting few unnecessary applications on their phones.
The reality is that the only phones that offer a “pure” Android experience are Google’s Pixel; and even that is questionable depending on what we consider “pure Android”. Regardless, it’s at least better than what other manufacturers are doing, which They pre-install all kinds of apps on their phones; and on many occasions, they do this as covert advertising, through monetary agreements with the creators of the applications. Users ended up labeling these unwanted apps as “bloatware,” and it became one of Android’s biggest problems.
Fortunately, Google may have found the solution to bloatware; although its success will depend on the manufacturers themselves. The new feature was discovered by Mishaal Rahman in Android 14 code, and would allow reduce memory and battery consumption of pre-installed applications. This way, they wouldn’t pose a big problem, even if you don’t uninstall them automatically.
To detect this poor use of resources, Android 14 will scan the system partitions the first time we turn on the mobile; If it detects apps configured to launch via an icon on the home screen, the system will stop them automatically. These stopped applications will not restart until the user opens them; In this way, Android will prevent pre-installed applications from using resources simply because they are already installed with the mobile and without the user doing anything.
The good news is that Google plans to enable this feature by default; The bad news is that this will allow manufacturers to disable it. Additionally, manufacturers will be able to add their own applications to a “whitelist”, made up of applications that will have permission to consume the resourceThis is even if they come pre-installed. The current list includes Google apps such as Chrome, YouTube and Play Store. The idea is that this “whitelist” is used for applications that really need to be in the background so as not to affect the functionality of the mobile (like data synchronization).
In other words, it’s entirely possible that this feature doesn’t really change anything; It all depends on the goodwill of the manufacturers, and whether they use this function correctly or simply put all the applications they want on the “whitelist”.
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