Motorola Ditches Some of its Bloatware with the Latest Android Upgrade

Motorola is removing bloatware in a big way, keeping its current lineup of smartphones something special for Android enthusiasts. The company plans to keep the phones light and clean without stuffing them with their own software and application. In an attempt to make the phones more Android pure, Motorola has announced which of its devices will be getting the Marshmallow upgrade and also announced that it would be deleting a few of its own software.

Specifically, Motorola will be removing in-house apps and services like Moto Assist, Motorola Migrate and the Motorola Connect (Chrome extension) and won’t preload them onto devices anymore.

Here’s why this is a good thing – Bloatware takes up a lot of storage space and resources. The extra weight causes slower upgrade process. Many OEMs have taken advantage of Android’s wide scope of applications and have generally stuffed their phones with applications that not only take up space but also don’t particularly enhance user experience since most of the apps are hardly ever used.

Motorola senior VP of software engineering Seang Chau understands why the company doesn’t need to add bloatware to its phone – because if users want an extra application, they can download it from the Google Play, that likely does better than what OEMs offer.

“The release of a new Android version is a great time to take a fresh look at our signature Moto Enhancements to ensure we’re complementing Android (not competing with it),” Motorola explains. “Both of these products were valuable in their time but the world has moved on and they no longer add enough value to justify taking up space in your device.”

This is how Motorola is finding acceptance among Android fans. Not many companies out there would accept that their own services don’t actually improve the overall user experience. Motorola has come to stand out as one of the very best Android OEMs when it comes to not taking up storage space and resources with its own applications.

For existing Motorola users, here’s a full list of devices that will be getting the upgrade to Android 6.0 Marshmallow with the deleted bloatware:

• 2015 Moto X Pure Edition (3rd gen)
• 2015 Moto X Style (3rd gen)
• 2015 Moto X Play
• 2015 Moto G (3rd gen)
• 2014 Moto X Pure Edition in the US (2nd gen)
• 2014 Moto X in Latin America, Europe and Asia² (2nd gen)
• 2014 Moto G and Moto G with 4G LTE² (2nd gen)
• DROID Turbo
• 2014 Moto MAXX
• 2014 Moto Turbo
• Nexus 6

The company will be releasing more information on the timing of these phone upgrades in the coming weeks.