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If You Thought Ads in Apple Maps Was Bad, Samsung is Putting Ads on $1,900+ Refrigerators
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I will no longer use Apple products if they put ads in maps or any of their other apps or devices.
This is the unfortunate problem. It's predatory capture the world around, in every line of business. As soon as people and companies feel they don't have to care, they don't. It will only get worse until people at the top feel the pain.
Register the product under the name of Charles Brandon Roegiers, of Bremerton, WA. And check ALL of the boxes for more information.
Really feels like that. Well perhaps except for touchscreens - old ones used to freak out if your fingers were just a little humid.
As for the suggestion to simply not connect this fridge to the net and this way being done with ads: that's assuming they don't nag you endlessly about setting up the network on this thing. I heard some more recent smart-TVs have started doing it. Would drive me crazy.
And that would be a 'premium usb-c' extra, as doesn't everyone have a lightning dongle....?
Clearly. I’m all for marketing but not everything needs an ad. Might as well rent out people’s foreheads at this point 🙄
That's the sort of thing you do once or twice for novelty value, then can't be arsed to do because it takes longer to administer than to actually make the snack. I guess it could teach you forward planning...?
Ha. I have a Samsung “Smart Regrigerator”. Every few days, a pop up was presented asking me to activate Amazon Alexa. I’d tap “Don’t show this again” and the app crashed.
Apple competitor Samsung has a line of "Family Hub" smart refrigerators equipped with integrated displays, and anything with a display can show you an ad. Starting later this month, Samsung is planning to take advantage of that refrigerator advertising space, and Family Hub refrigerators in the U.S. will get a widget that shows ads.
Samsung confirmed to Fortune last month that it was testing a "pilot program" to offer some fridge owners "promotions and curated advertisements," and now Samsung is ready to provide ads to even more users. 2024 Family Hub refrigerators will get a software update this week, and the update will bring ads to the refrigerator display when it's idle. Ads will start showing up on November 3.
Family Hub refrigerators are priced starting at $1,899, but they go up to $3,499. The refrigerators include 21.5-inch to 32-inch screens and are advertised as keeping families connected. Users can share pictures, videos, and drawings with Google Photos, get recipes, play music, manage calendar events, and buy items from Amazon. Higher-end refrigerators feature "AI Vision" that keeps track of the items inside.
The ads are part of a new Cover screen widget, and they'll be displayed alongside other information like the weather, calendar events, and news. Samsung says that users can choose to opt out of the ads for now through the Advertisements tab of the Settings menu, though that disables all widget features. Ads can also be dismissed from the Cover screen, and the specific ad dismissed won't appear again during the campaign period. Samsung says that ads won't appear when the Cover screen shows art or album themes.
Samsung's decision to include ads on the Family Hub refrigerators has come as a surprise to many customers because the fridges have been available for years now. Many who bought the refrigerator without any expectation that it would show ads will now be subject to advertising. There will undoubtedly be customers unaware that they can opt out of the ads, because Samsung has decided to turn ads on by default.
To begin with, the Family Hub refrigerators will only show ads for Samsung products, but Samsung seems to be planning to allow third-party advertisers to show ads, according to The Verge.
Apple doesn't make refrigerators, but it too is ramping up the number of places where it displays ads. Recent reports suggest that the Apple Maps app will start showing ads in search results as soon as next year.
Article Link: If You Thought Ads in Apple Maps Was Bad, Samsung is Putting Ads on $1,900+ Refrigerators
I’d see the pop up again three days later.
This went on for months.
I finally had to activate Alexa and then remove it to get the pop up to go away.
Samsung is ****.
Also- I’d never buy a “smart refrigerator” again. Literally nothing on it works.
The Amazon Buy Now integration was removed. The “AI” that advertised to recognize what was in your refrigerator was a joke. Recipe sites- nope. No longer supported.
Everything advertised was and is total trash.
Just give me a refrigerator.
You're assuming the firmware doesn't have generalized Samsung adverts in NV memory. Just like FireTV there should be an ad versus no-ad version, with no-ad coming at a premium. There's no excuse for this.
A built-in screen on a fridge is truly stupid. But attaching an iPad to the fridge door is a pretty good idea. We have an iPad in the kitchen for following recipes. It takes up precious counter space. Would love it if it could magnetically attach to the fridge, but a lot of stainless steel finishes aren’t magnetic.
My refrigerator doesn’t need to be connected to the god forsaken internet. Nor the dishwasher. Nor the washer and dryer. In fact, my whole life doesn’t need to be “connected” and “online” all the time. And I don’t need a freaking screen on everything, everywhere. It’s all so stupid these days. And Apple putting ads in Maps? Tell me Tim Crook and Apple aren’t greedy. Now they are going to go down that tacky path? I use Apple products, but Apple disgusts me more and more as time goes on.
Ah, but the targets for these ads are the people with deep pockets, the ones who can afford to pay $4,000 for a fridge. Advertisers don't want to pay $$$ to put ads in front of the raggedy-assed masses.
And there is a massive up charge if you want more than 8 ice cubes at a time.
They could save enough in electricity in 1 year to pay for a new (non smart) fridge.Meanwhile my parents refrigerator is still going strong since the 70’s
Everyone saying 'just don't connect it to the internet' or 'why does a fridge need to smart and have a display' etc..
That is wholly beside the point!
I like the idea of having recipes, notes, calendar, weather etc on a fridge- it's a simple connected service that synchronises information- and that is what I would be looking for as a consumer.
If I had one of these fridges and they changed the software so that I then had to have ads -or- none of my synchronising features.. I would be pissed and I would be contacted my consumer protections organisation.
We need to push back against en********ation.
That is wholly beside the point!
I like the idea of having recipes, notes, calendar, weather etc on a fridge- it's a simple connected service that synchronises information- and that is what I would be looking for as a consumer.
If I had one of these fridges and they changed the software so that I then had to have ads -or- none of my synchronising features.. I would be pissed and I would be contacted my consumer protections organisation.
We need to push back against en********ation.