Lenovo Adware, Apple Car, Samsung LoopPay

Welcome to the Tech.pinions podcast. This week, Tim Bajarin, Bob O’Donnell and Jan Dawson discuss the Lenovo adware issue, the possibility of an Apple car, and the potential Samsung purchase of electronic payment firm LoopPay.

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Bob O'Donnell

Bob O’Donnell is the president and chief analyst of TECHnalysis Research, LLC a technology consulting and market research firm that provides strategic consulting and market research services to the technology industry and professional financial community. You can follow him on Twitter @bobodtech.

34 thoughts on “Lenovo Adware, Apple Car, Samsung LoopPay”

  1. Nice capture of this weeks tech stories.

    On Lenovo adware. I don’t see this as a Lenovo issue, they were just caught out by a common behavior.

    This highlights how Apple really does provide a better model for most people. No loaded crapware of any kind. On Mobile Google itself is part of the problem for Android, since Google collects more information about users than anyone else and serves targeted advertising.

    Apple is your best bet to be free from tracking/ads, if you care about that.

    I hate the Apple car rumor(Totally absurd IMO). With a 2020 target date we are going to get these rumors for 5+ years. Then we will get the 2021 rumors about why the “Apple Car” is late. Then maybe in 2025 we will get the rumors why “Apple Car” failed to launch. Never any acknowledgement that it was a nonsense rumor like Apple TV sets. Unfortunately with a page hit revenue stream, rumor generation is now a business model.

    Loop uses the magnetic strip reader? How does that work?

    In Canada we went Chip and Pin a couple of years ago. I haven’t used a mag strip in quite some time. I only discovered recently that tap and pay was automatically enabled on my card. I just tap my card on the terminal and paid via NFC (same as Apple pay). I probably never would have enabled it, but I love it. It is so fast and convenient.

  2. This so deserves repeating. So succinct! Precisely words what I have been feeling for a few years now.

    “I hate the Apple car rumor(Totally absurd IMO). With a 2020 target date
    we are going to get these rumors for 5+ years. Then we will get the 2021
    rumors about why the “Apple Car” is late. Then maybe in 2025 we will
    get the rumors why “Apple Car” failed to launch. Never any
    acknowledgement that it was a nonsense rumor like Apple TV sets.
    Unfortunately with a page hit revenue stream, rumor generation is now a
    business model.”

  3. I think you went a bit easy on Lenovo. Shipping PCs with performance crippling adware — that turns out to be a security risk on top — is really appallingly poor judgement. Pretend for a second that Apple had done this, I don’t think this type of betrayal of customers would be forgiven easily.

  4. Lenovo fully deserves the heat they’re getting. Are they also a victim? Yes, but it’s their greed and incompetence that made victims of their users. It’s also not the first time products got shipped with malware or viruses. Even Apple got hit a few years ago.

  5. Klahanas and Peter reflect my sentiments about Lenovo. What I was most perplexed and disappointed in was the tone of your conversation. To me it came across as very sympathetic to those who perpetrated what happened (yet I hear many supposed experts express severe concern and admonishment of Lenovo. I was left with a question about what you might find as outrageous and unacceptable. I appreciate that your respective personal businesses is working with senior people in companies like Lenovo, so dissing a client’s behaviour is a sensitive place to go. BUT? I even found the chuckle made when “crapware” was mentioned also disturbing. I have had experiences with crapware and it was far from a chuckle moment. The fact that many pc companies resort to installing it (to make money) shows me that they do not respect customers. The decision to install crapware is an indication,eat on these organizations business practices and business models.

    I appreciate and enjoy listening to your podcasts and reading your respective articles, it is unfortunate that for me listening to how you “glided” over the significance on what happened is dimishing of my esteem for your apparently expressed standards.

    1. I suspect that it is hard for industry insiders to understand why consumers would be shocked when they learn “how the sausage is made”, after all this is how the sausage has always been made. That said, as a consumer I prefer not to be sold pig’s ear sausage that is labelled as beef.

      1. Peter, your analogy made me smile.

        It is one thing to me to by a pc and have various forms of poorly performing or limited for one month software installed (most of my exasperated experience with crapware), it is another to have software that is by numerous reports downright dangerous. The way senior Lenovo management have responded to this exposure is to me far from comforting. I gather there is already one lawsuit being forwarded, perhaps, if this goes forward we will get some more accurate insights on the business practices and ethics of Lenovo leadership.

        I an accept that I may be alarmist, but let’s say I am not, I come back to my concerns about the way the podcast participants seemed quickly comforted by a conference call. Pre-installing software that creates security risks and takes extraordinary efforts to remove is serious for me. Being ignorant and then finding out that a firm that I thought deserved my trust (Lenovo in this case) creates a sense of betrayal.

        So my question then becomes: Who should I trust if I am going to buy a pc?

        1. “Who should I trust if I am going to buy a pc?”

          Trust a PC maker that is financially motivated to serve you well, meaning they have a good profit margin. If they’re selling to you at cost or just above cost, you can be fairly certain you won’t be well-served as a customer.

        2. “Who should I trust if I am going to buy a pc?”
          Nobody! Zilch, Zip Nada! Take nothing for granted.

          I’ve been solving my own problems since forever. Except for my Apple devices. Not that they didn’t have problems, they had problems I couldn’t fix, or when the problem was by design to protect my “experience”.

    2. This is all just a natural extension of “I can stop any time I want to, I just don’t want to; I’m only slightly pregnant; It’s your fault I did this; I’m not an alcoholic”.
      It’s time they all went to rehab, or have an intervention at least.

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