Galaxy S2 (AT&T) News.apk sucks life out of dataplan

[specialed_58]

Hey,

Got wife new S2 and it seems Samsung has bundled lots of apps including the AP Mobile (News.apk) which you can not easily turn off.

It also happily sucks huge amounts of bandwidth daily...I'm going broke supporting an unwanted app.

Anyone know where the "OFF" button is...without rooting and freezing...don't want to own a brick.

Thanks

 

[ssddx]

my guess would be to go into the program and find the settings (try pressing the menu key) and disable automatic updating or something which accomplishes the same thing. that should stop the app from pulling news. if not there are probably apps you can run which control which programs can acccess your data connection and which do not. i've never used any though.

if you want the program to not run at all unless you manually start it then there are programs like autostarts which does a very nice job of controlling this.

as far as rooting is concerned...as long as you doesnt have a locked boot then using roms is pretty much a painfree experience if you have a popular phone. for instance my older incredible 1 had a program where all you had to do was click on a single button to root. as long as you run titanium backup and havea vague idea what you are doing its not bad at all. you really have to try hard to brick a phone where its useless.

 

[specialed_58]

OK Thanks...just found and turned off "data packets" believe that would cause open "roaming" . I will observe a couple of days to be sure then root if needed.

 

[specialed_58]

ssddx...not the answer. Is default app created at Samsung and from what I can tell after returning suspect phone for "lock out" and getting new one...AT&T can fix it at the store level...since replaced, no extreme data usage. Will watch to confirm. Please research same...reply with confirmation and that will be "best answer".

 

[ssddx]

doesnt the s2 run a stock (non oem rom) version of android? if so the news.apk is most likely a native android app from google and not samsung.

in any case news apps can be disabled either in the settings by making it a manual update only, manual launch only or just by deleting any information it uses to look for news (zip, type, etc) in a worst case scenario.

the at&t reps most likely just know where the setting is without searching for it is my guess. yes there are some things they can do at a store easier (such as activations) but in general what they can do , you can do.

if you are still terribly worried about data usage there are apps which can disable data to select apps. also as i stated earlier there are also apps to change what launches on startup (autostarts). if it doesnt launch it cannot pull data. i think it was $2 but well worth the money for what it can do.

 

[specialed_58]

Sorry for delay...took the phone back to AT&T 2nd time and either phone defective or AT&T rep repaired the problem (most of the way) at teh store. Now only loosing 2 MB per day on update and always at 10:26 P.M. EST.

We can close this out as an anolomity and not a general problem. Can someone select a "Best Answer" and end this thread
Thanks

 

[specialed_58]

As a new thought can everyone looking at this review my new post and request others to review. There is no :Google" info and it worries me.

Unknown drivers with scary names...posting now.

thanks

 

[specialed_58]

Best answer selected by specialed_58.