LOVE My New Samsung Galaxy S III Phone, But Rogers Sullied It!

When I purchased my gorgeous, brand spanking new Samsung Galaxy S III smartphone yesterday (“Sammy Jr.” … my Galaxy I phone is “Sammy”,) it came with apps that I wouldn’t generally need or even simply want. Like any smartphone provider, Rogers has devised ways to try to “upsell” soft products that they honestly don’t pay any attention to themselves. ‘Cause if they did really want to make Angry Birds type money off of these apps, they would… well. work, for instance.

Rogers Applications

Why yes, I do have Starbucks as a priority app, why do you ask? 😉Imagine my surprise when I saw an app called “1 Number”, after stating yesterday that you can’t use Rogers One Number to call home when you’re out of town. The app is highly misleading though, ’cause while it does send you to a mobile friend site, it still doesn’t let you access a phone dialer, nor the messaging service, so you still can’t make free local calls while roaming.

If that was the only issue, I’d say, “Meh, whatevs.” and move on.

But it’s not. No. No, Rogers has a special app that has driven me crazy, and I’ve had this phone for less than 24 hours at this point. There’s an app known as Visual Voice Mail Plus, and its truly annoying.

This app actually reminded me to search out a Task Manager app so that I could turn off apps that I don’t want running. So after downloading the Task Manager, I did what I always do when an app I don’t need is open; I closed it.

This app though… it turned itself on again. What the ….

It’s like its haunting my phone. I want to start chanting, “Out, damn’d spot! Out, I say!” And even if it sounds really cool to be able to visually read your voice mail, this service would cost me $10/month on top of my regularly scheduled expensive bill.

Yeah? No.

(BTW, my Sammy did voice-to-text messages, which were highly entertaining since whenever the person calling would say “Hi Aeryn!” the V-t-T would always text with “Hi Aaron!”… not even “Erin”, which is the common way to spell my name for females. How sexist.)

So no matter how many times I push the clear button, as seen in the image below, I instantly get these three messages showing up at all times, without fail. They just won’t permanently erase themselves.

#FAIL!

You may be reading this and think, well why don’t you just uninstall it?

Great suggestion! The answer is: I can’t. No really. It’s impossible without rooting the phone (which is a bad thing to try if your phone is still under contract/warranty.) Rogers has made it so that their apps cannot be deleted, no matter how much you beg, plead, cry.

But there is an alternative.

If you purchase a Samsung Galaxy S III phone (which I highly recommend), from Rogers. Don’t update any of the apps yet, until you’ve disabled the Rogers atrocities (otherwise, like me, you’ll have a second step to contend with first.)

So if your phone is new with no updates made yet, go to Settings > Applications Manager > All > (Rogers App in Question, for ex:) Visual Voicemail Plus > Disable.

If you did immediately update all apps before seeing this post, you’ll have to do one more thing. So go to Settings > Applications Manager > All > (Rogers App in Question, for ex:) Visual Voicemail Plus > Uninstall Updates > Disable. N.B. When reverting back to the factory install of the Visual Voicemail Plus application, the name actually changes in the system to “VVM Plus”, so you’ll have to search for that app in order to get to the “Disable” button.

You will get this scary message when trying to disable. But just pull up your big-boy/girl panties up and hit “OK”.

So, one down, five to go! Notice that that three !!! warning exclamations from the top image are gone? Sammy Jr. has been saved, WOOT! They’re not coming back baby!!! *happy sigh of relief*

Are you thinking of purchasing a new cell phone soon?  Any questions on what to look for?  

(NO Apple vs Android bashing PLEASE!!)