Is it Droid or that ever-looming, never materializing Microsoft phone, that uses voice recognition to identify keywords in order to target ads to the user of the phone? Does this not strike you as excessive? It certainly strikes me as excessive.
Correct. And that's not just limited to Google.
Is it Droid or that ever-looming, never materializing Microsoft phone, that uses voice recognition to identify keywords in order to target ads to the user of the phone?
It's not just Google or Microsoft; Apple does it as well. And all are looking to profit on ad deliveries, inside AND outside of the apps themselves.
As far as never materializing, I spent an hour or so using a Win Phone 7 device on Wednesday, a rather nice, refreshing take on a UI. The phone is coming, they'll be out around September/October of this year.
Does this not strike you as excessive? It certainly strikes me as excessive.
Yes it does. Which is why I still have a WinMo 6.5 phone. No ads, it does exactly what I want, it has a slick UI (courtesy of SPB's Mobile Shell), and is fully programmable/extensible via 3rd party tools or tools I decide to write myself. No restrictions on what is "allowed".
Ads will be with us; Google will probably do their normal thing which is make them as unobtrusive as possible. Present, but not "in your face". And of course, because it's legal to root the phone, you can do so and edit your HOSTS file to completely block AdMob altogether. Meaning ads are at the control of the user, not the provider.
Microsoft has already stated that Win Phone 7 will have ads, but that the user can turn them off (meaning you can shut off all ad content). Much like Android, but it sounds like it's a simple configuration switch easily available for the user.
Apple is pushing rich media (popovers/popunders/audio) ads that are solely at the control of the app developer. User has no ability to control the presence or absence of the ads.
The first two are annoyances, but at least they can be stopped. The third? Well, it's illegal to root your phone so if you even want to try to stop ads, you are already breaking the law. And that's if there IS a way to stop them...