Are Notification Ads a Nuisance

**The Debate Over Ads on Devices: Lenovo’s P11 Pro Tablet Experience and Beyond**

In recent discussions about tech devices, a heated topic has emerged regarding the presence of ads on tablets, smartphones, and other gadgets. This article delves into the conversation surrounding Lenovo's P11 Pro tablet, its "tips" app, and the broader implications of advertising notifications on devices we purchase.

**Lenovo’s Approach to Advertising on the P11 Pro Tablet**

The Lenovo P11 Pro tablet has sparked controversy due to its pre-installed "Tips" app, which serves ads. Ron, a user who recently acquired the tablet, shared his experience. He mentioned that while he hasn’t encountered an ad yet, he confirmed that the app cannot be uninstalled or disabled. This raises concerns about user control over their devices.

The app delivers notifications for services like Amazon Music, which some users perceive as intrusive. Ron drew a distinction between graphical ads and mere notifications, arguing that the latter can be easily dismissed. However, Jason countered that even if it’s just a notification, it still feels like an ad when it’s promoting a service through corporate partnerships.

**Comparison with Other Brands**

Lenovo is not alone in incorporating ads into their devices. Ron pointed out that brands like Samsung and TCL also engage in similar practices. For instance, Amazon has been known for graphical advertisements on the lock screen of its Kindles. However, there’s progress: Samsung recently announced plans to remove ads from many of its first-party apps.

Ron suggested that these ads might be part of a strategy to reduce device costs, benefiting consumers through lower prices. Jason agreed, noting that this practice is more acceptable for budget devices like the Lenovo tablet compared to premium devices where users expect fewer intrusions.

**User Reactions and Perspectives**

The debate highlights differing user reactions to ads on devices. While Ron finds the situation manageable—swiping away notifications as they appear—Jason expressed frustration. He hates unexpected notifications that disrupt his workflow, especially when they come from apps he didn’t actively choose.

Ron acknowledged the potential nuisance but emphasized that these notifications don’t hinder device usage. Jason, however, drew a line at persistent ads or those that interfere with productivity. He likened this to sacred spaces on devices, such as notification shades, which users rely on for managing their day.

**Hyperbole in Social Media and the Teapot Tempest**

The conversation also touched on the role of social media in amplifying concerns. Ben Krasnow’s tweet about the Lenovo tablet being modified via a forced update to serve ads was described by Ron as hyperbolic. He clarified that it was merely a system update, not a malicious modification.

Jason agreed, noting that while some users blow issues out of proportion, others genuinely feel annoyed by such practices. The distinction lies in individual tolerance levels and how they perceive the balance between convenience and intrusion.

**Broader Implications and Future Discussions**

The discussion concluded with anticipation for an upcoming review of the Lenovo tablet, where Ron hopes to document any ad encounters. Jason echoed curiosity about whether these ads are truly persistent or just temporary.

As tech companies continue to integrate ads into their devices, the debate over user control and intrusive notifications will likely persist. The balance between lowering costs through partnerships and respecting user preferences remains a challenge for manufacturers.

In conclusion, while some users find ads on devices manageable, others view them as significant annoyances. The future of this practice will depend on how companies evolve their strategies to meet consumer expectations in an ever-changing tech landscape.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enthis is twit it's a bummer flow's not here uh looking forward for talking to her about her uh article um that she wrote last week that was about the lenovo p11 pro tablet experience which uh which i just bought this tablet so um so listen you know advertising notifications on devices uh that we buy can be frustrating you know we've seen amazon do we've seen some other manufacturers do it um and flow actually wrote recently how lenovo is um and i'm i'm gonna keep this straight and then i'm gonna play counter argument to it but um flow wrote about how lenovo is quote-unquote throwing ads into the p11 pro experience um these ads are being served by the lenovo tips app and this app can't be uninstalled or disabled but users can disable notifications for the app um but unsure if that fixes the quote-unquote problem and as mentioned lenovo is not the only brand that does this samsung tcl amazon anana they all do it uh samsung recently confirmed that it would be removing ads for many of its first party apps which is progress um now a lot of this i will say this is a little bit of a tempest in a teapot now i've only had i've only had the tablet here's the tablet my new my new fancy case i got my little book folio case for it right so i can carry it around safely nice i've only had i've i've only had it for about a week and a half i have not gotten one of these ads yet um but i can confirm i can confirm that the disputed tips app uh cannot be uninstalled or disabled at all like it's on the tablet there's nothing i can do about it right um where this all stemmed from was someone posted in the lenovo forums about how they received an ad uh that was uh was it that was pushing a notification for an offer to join amazon music okay so here's the thing a notification to join a service through some sort of corporate partnership well technically is an ad when you tell me that it's forcing an ad i'm thinking like the amazon kindle fire experience when there's actually a ad on the lock screen like a graphical advertisement right but a notification saying hey lenovo customer here's an offer for you that to me doesn't feel like an ad that's just part of the crap that the companies roll out through their partnerships and all those sort of sort of things so while i get the the the upsetness of an app that you a bloatware app that you can't uninstall that you that lives on your device whether you want it or not and potentially serving messages that are promoting a service or quote unquote an ad on my scale of like the worst thing in the world this is like a three because guess what you can swipe that notification as fast as you see it and then it's never gonna bother you again right there's a big difference between getting getting truly served an ad versus getting a notification from an app like the tips app um so and again that said i didn't get the notification i didn't get the quote-unquote ad maybe it was graphical maybe it was more intrusive but i don't know jason tell me if you disagree or if i'm wrong but like i just feel like this is a little bit of a tempest in a teapot and that this isn't the that big of a deal that it was made out to be lasting i had people tweeting at me about this last year right right because they know the lenovo connection yeah yeah uh well i'll just start off by saying that you're not wrong ron because that's your experience right and uh you're fine with it um i totally i'm kind of in the opposite camp like i hate it when on a phone i get a notification that's like hey act now over here we've got a little thing going on and i fully realized like you know and sometimes we do this to ourselves right like we install an app on our phone we don't realize that that app whoever developed it you know they're they get really crafty with their notifications and what they can do with them and yes you can use the notifications pane as an advertising platform it might not have images in it but is it is it is it messaging that's meant to like move you you know get you to try something that you maybe don't already have installed like i consider that an ad that's like hey this exists over here uh why don't you do it that's the same as someone saying hey i've got you know a cereal that you've never tried here check it out and i go to the store and i buy it what's the difference between an ad and a special offer from by being a customer of one of of that you know like i mean all all these cut like are you gonna tell me the netflix button on my chromecast remote is an ad i can never get rid of oh well actually it kind of is i mean it's it's there with the intent like netflix has paid to put that button there so that you'll push it um yeah now i happen to be a netflix user so that doesn't bother me as much but for someone who isn't a netflix user they're probably pretty ticked off that they can't remove that ugly netflix button from their remote at the same time there's a reason that it's there because you know the the hardware that you're buying uh the price of that might be lower because of that deal so i think sometimes that gets lost in the noise too is that like maybe with some of these devices and flo points this out in her article a lot of times like with it with a device coming from walmart you know the onan um you know that's a lower cost tablet and so i'm not surprised when i see an ad coming up on a tablet like that like that kind of makes sense to me they're subsidizing the cost of that to bring the price down that's kind of the price you pay do i like it no but i get it i understand it if you're getting a samsung phone and like and and samsung like you mentioned only recently kind of dedicated themselves to um not doing this as much i don't know that that necessarily means that they're not doing it at all but as much when i get a samsung phone and you know say i've spent you know six seven eight a thousand dollars on this on this phone and then i get an ad yeah i'd be pretty ticked off about that personally but but you know what it really just like like we're finding here it really just depends some people this doesn't bother at all and i just feel like you know especially on those higher tier phones if uh or and i don't know i don't really know where the lenovo tablet falls into this category it's definitely not a premium tablet but it's also not like a bottom of the uh the barrel tablet either it's kind of middle road so i suppose it kind of makes sense there's probably some sort of you know supplementing of of the cost of this tablet maybe that's at play here so i don't know i i guess i'm a little conflicted because i kind of get it but at the same time it annoys me when it happens that makes sense yeah i don't know but it annoys you but i guess the question i don't know i i don't know maybe maybe i'm crazy just because i'm not that miffed by this but like i feel like we get i feel like we get hit i i see a distinction between an offer that is because there's so many corporate partnerships and so many things like that and offer that is served via that way and a truly intrusive ad that is blocking my like and replication doesn't block your access to what you're doing it doesn't like it like you literally all you have to do is ignore it or swipe it away and like you don't you like and i guess it's a nuisance but it's not stopping you from using the device that's where i draw the line yeah but what if there are 10 apps on your phone all throwing notifications up there i mean then that gets sure and of course that isn't necessarily happening but there's nothing saying that it couldn't happen and if that did happen i'd be super annoyed you know i don't know i i think what it is is for some people different places on our phones become kind of like sacred places you know it's like my notification shade i use it for a very specific reason i use it to manage my uh my day largely we talked about it on the show many times and when something ends up there that i didn't want there yeah it's it's annoying is it a deal breaker no but but i definitely stop and i notice i'm like oh that's that's like i didn't want that there but yeah you know at the end of the day you're right it's super easy to just swipe it away and there's controls in android for me to swipe halfway and then turn off notifications entirely for that app and maybe that gets rid of it so you know i'm i'm aware enough to do that i suppose and there's a lot of people that aren't and they're just going to be annoyed all the time now i will say that and burke just flashed the tweet for our video viewers who are watching for audio our reviewers uh a person by the name of ben krasnow tweeted about this and i i will say on the melodrama scale this tweet is pretty high in that in case you consider buying my lenovo tablet was remotely modified via forced update to have an undismissable unmutable system add notifications from an app that cannot be uninstalled or disabled that true compared to that but that description of what's really going on is a little hyperbolic and i'm about as hyperbolic as they come and so like i'll call hyperbolic when i hear it and i'm sorry ben that's a that was a little hyperbolic it's like my tablet was remotely modified so it makes it sound as if someone came into your tablet and remotely did it when you just ran a system update okay it was a forced update which is the system update to have an undismissable unmutable systems ad notification that and now i didn't get the ad so i'm not sure but if it's a notification you just swipe away i assume that's okay you know like that i don't know it's live what what's that yeah if it's persistent that's a problem if it's yeah i will give you that jason if if it's persistent that is a problem um but needs to say i i use my app i use my tablet a ton this weekend trying to get this to happen and maybe they they got scared and turned off the serve the notification service after this one after this whole 10 percent of teapot happened but i've yet it's yet to happen to me when it does i'm gonna screenshot it i'll document it we'll talk about it but right now i do think that this is a little more of a a a uh uh 10 teapot like i said um yeah that said i know we talked about i was gonna do a review of the lenovo tablet uh we're gonna do it next week right jason i think that's the plan yeah we've got it in the calendar for next week yeah so so we'll go in deep and maybe by next week i've got a notification uh i'll gotten an ad and i'll be singing a different tune and be very angry so yeah i mean i'll be i'll be really curious if you do end up getting this i mean obviously i know you would come back to the show and you would talk about that but i'd be really curious that that one undismissable part i think that's that's a pretty critical aspect of this if it's truly a notification that is an ad about something or whatever you know whatever you want to call it that you cannot get rid of oh i like i'd be complaining on twitter too that would be like that's i'm indefensible as far as i'm concerned if you're gonna put that down okay but you got to let me get rid of it i would like to see a screenshot of it i've yet to see anybody who actually show what this looks like um and all we've seen is this report and what's so funny is that like what this this shows you like the the good or the bad of all this of of social media but it appears as if this one tweet set off all these blog posts about it yeah um and yeah and it just is it's yeah so um and that's and that's the thing is that like you know it says you know they they you know if you go and read the forum conversation between that guy this is not a tip this is a push that is advertising a paid service i loathe this sort of thing so this person is clearly i don't want to say karen but but is is clearly on the side of looking for a fight you know whereas somebody like me who who like is isn't that upset by it so it's all your mileage may vary so totally um totally yeah yeah i think this conversation kind of kind of makes that pretty obvious right like really it depends on who you ask like everybody's going to feel a little bit differently about this it could be as easy as just swiping it away and like what's the big what's the big deal it could also be if it was website which is this is my device like why is this coming into my device and i didn't invite it you know right and the undismissable thing is the weird thing and i have a heart i have a hard time believing that it's truly undismissable um because that is user hostile but we'll see yeah we'll see when it hits your tablet ron richards when i get it we'll see what you think i'm really hoping i get it during the show so we can it can happen oh that would be amazing yes please keep checkingthis is twit it's a bummer flow's not here uh looking forward for talking to her about her uh article um that she wrote last week that was about the lenovo p11 pro tablet experience which uh which i just bought this tablet so um so listen you know advertising notifications on devices uh that we buy can be frustrating you know we've seen amazon do we've seen some other manufacturers do it um and flow actually wrote recently how lenovo is um and i'm i'm gonna keep this straight and then i'm gonna play counter argument to it but um flow wrote about how lenovo is quote-unquote throwing ads into the p11 pro experience um these ads are being served by the lenovo tips app and this app can't be uninstalled or disabled but users can disable notifications for the app um but unsure if that fixes the quote-unquote problem and as mentioned lenovo is not the only brand that does this samsung tcl amazon anana they all do it uh samsung recently confirmed that it would be removing ads for many of its first party apps which is progress um now a lot of this i will say this is a little bit of a tempest in a teapot now i've only had i've only had the tablet here's the tablet my new my new fancy case i got my little book folio case for it right so i can carry it around safely nice i've only had i've i've only had it for about a week and a half i have not gotten one of these ads yet um but i can confirm i can confirm that the disputed tips app uh cannot be uninstalled or disabled at all like it's on the tablet there's nothing i can do about it right um where this all stemmed from was someone posted in the lenovo forums about how they received an ad uh that was uh was it that was pushing a notification for an offer to join amazon music okay so here's the thing a notification to join a service through some sort of corporate partnership well technically is an ad when you tell me that it's forcing an ad i'm thinking like the amazon kindle fire experience when there's actually a ad on the lock screen like a graphical advertisement right but a notification saying hey lenovo customer here's an offer for you that to me doesn't feel like an ad that's just part of the crap that the companies roll out through their partnerships and all those sort of sort of things so while i get the the the upsetness of an app that you a bloatware app that you can't uninstall that you that lives on your device whether you want it or not and potentially serving messages that are promoting a service or quote unquote an ad on my scale of like the worst thing in the world this is like a three because guess what you can swipe that notification as fast as you see it and then it's never gonna bother you again right there's a big difference between getting getting truly served an ad versus getting a notification from an app like the tips app um so and again that said i didn't get the notification i didn't get the quote-unquote ad maybe it was graphical maybe it was more intrusive but i don't know jason tell me if you disagree or if i'm wrong but like i just feel like this is a little bit of a tempest in a teapot and that this isn't the that big of a deal that it was made out to be lasting i had people tweeting at me about this last year right right because they know the lenovo connection yeah yeah uh well i'll just start off by saying that you're not wrong ron because that's your experience right and uh you're fine with it um i totally i'm kind of in the opposite camp like i hate it when on a phone i get a notification that's like hey act now over here we've got a little thing going on and i fully realized like you know and sometimes we do this to ourselves right like we install an app on our phone we don't realize that that app whoever developed it you know they're they get really crafty with their notifications and what they can do with them and yes you can use the notifications pane as an advertising platform it might not have images in it but is it is it is it messaging that's meant to like move you you know get you to try something that you maybe don't already have installed like i consider that an ad that's like hey this exists over here uh why don't you do it that's the same as someone saying hey i've got you know a cereal that you've never tried here check it out and i go to the store and i buy it what's the difference between an ad and a special offer from by being a customer of one of of that you know like i mean all all these cut like are you gonna tell me the netflix button on my chromecast remote is an ad i can never get rid of oh well actually it kind of is i mean it's it's there with the intent like netflix has paid to put that button there so that you'll push it um yeah now i happen to be a netflix user so that doesn't bother me as much but for someone who isn't a netflix user they're probably pretty ticked off that they can't remove that ugly netflix button from their remote at the same time there's a reason that it's there because you know the the hardware that you're buying uh the price of that might be lower because of that deal so i think sometimes that gets lost in the noise too is that like maybe with some of these devices and flo points this out in her article a lot of times like with it with a device coming from walmart you know the onan um you know that's a lower cost tablet and so i'm not surprised when i see an ad coming up on a tablet like that like that kind of makes sense to me they're subsidizing the cost of that to bring the price down that's kind of the price you pay do i like it no but i get it i understand it if you're getting a samsung phone and like and and samsung like you mentioned only recently kind of dedicated themselves to um not doing this as much i don't know that that necessarily means that they're not doing it at all but as much when i get a samsung phone and you know say i've spent you know six seven eight a thousand dollars on this on this phone and then i get an ad yeah i'd be pretty ticked off about that personally but but you know what it really just like like we're finding here it really just depends some people this doesn't bother at all and i just feel like you know especially on those higher tier phones if uh or and i don't know i don't really know where the lenovo tablet falls into this category it's definitely not a premium tablet but it's also not like a bottom of the uh the barrel tablet either it's kind of middle road so i suppose it kind of makes sense there's probably some sort of you know supplementing of of the cost of this tablet maybe that's at play here so i don't know i i guess i'm a little conflicted because i kind of get it but at the same time it annoys me when it happens that makes sense yeah i don't know but it annoys you but i guess the question i don't know i i don't know maybe maybe i'm crazy just because i'm not that miffed by this but like i feel like we get i feel like we get hit i i see a distinction between an offer that is because there's so many corporate partnerships and so many things like that and offer that is served via that way and a truly intrusive ad that is blocking my like and replication doesn't block your access to what you're doing it doesn't like it like you literally all you have to do is ignore it or swipe it away and like you don't you like and i guess it's a nuisance but it's not stopping you from using the device that's where i draw the line yeah but what if there are 10 apps on your phone all throwing notifications up there i mean then that gets sure and of course that isn't necessarily happening but there's nothing saying that it couldn't happen and if that did happen i'd be super annoyed you know i don't know i i think what it is is for some people different places on our phones become kind of like sacred places you know it's like my notification shade i use it for a very specific reason i use it to manage my uh my day largely we talked about it on the show many times and when something ends up there that i didn't want there yeah it's it's annoying is it a deal breaker no but but i definitely stop and i notice i'm like oh that's that's like i didn't want that there but yeah you know at the end of the day you're right it's super easy to just swipe it away and there's controls in android for me to swipe halfway and then turn off notifications entirely for that app and maybe that gets rid of it so you know i'm i'm aware enough to do that i suppose and there's a lot of people that aren't and they're just going to be annoyed all the time now i will say that and burke just flashed the tweet for our video viewers who are watching for audio our reviewers uh a person by the name of ben krasnow tweeted about this and i i will say on the melodrama scale this tweet is pretty high in that in case you consider buying my lenovo tablet was remotely modified via forced update to have an undismissable unmutable system add notifications from an app that cannot be uninstalled or disabled that true compared to that but that description of what's really going on is a little hyperbolic and i'm about as hyperbolic as they come and so like i'll call hyperbolic when i hear it and i'm sorry ben that's a that was a little hyperbolic it's like my tablet was remotely modified so it makes it sound as if someone came into your tablet and remotely did it when you just ran a system update okay it was a forced update which is the system update to have an undismissable unmutable systems ad notification that and now i didn't get the ad so i'm not sure but if it's a notification you just swipe away i assume that's okay you know like that i don't know it's live what what's that yeah if it's persistent that's a problem if it's yeah i will give you that jason if if it's persistent that is a problem um but needs to say i i use my app i use my tablet a ton this weekend trying to get this to happen and maybe they they got scared and turned off the serve the notification service after this one after this whole 10 percent of teapot happened but i've yet it's yet to happen to me when it does i'm gonna screenshot it i'll document it we'll talk about it but right now i do think that this is a little more of a a a uh uh 10 teapot like i said um yeah that said i know we talked about i was gonna do a review of the lenovo tablet uh we're gonna do it next week right jason i think that's the plan yeah we've got it in the calendar for next week yeah so so we'll go in deep and maybe by next week i've got a notification uh i'll gotten an ad and i'll be singing a different tune and be very angry so yeah i mean i'll be i'll be really curious if you do end up getting this i mean obviously i know you would come back to the show and you would talk about that but i'd be really curious that that one undismissable part i think that's that's a pretty critical aspect of this if it's truly a notification that is an ad about something or whatever you know whatever you want to call it that you cannot get rid of oh i like i'd be complaining on twitter too that would be like that's i'm indefensible as far as i'm concerned if you're gonna put that down okay but you got to let me get rid of it i would like to see a screenshot of it i've yet to see anybody who actually show what this looks like um and all we've seen is this report and what's so funny is that like what this this shows you like the the good or the bad of all this of of social media but it appears as if this one tweet set off all these blog posts about it yeah um and yeah and it just is it's yeah so um and that's and that's the thing is that like you know it says you know they they you know if you go and read the forum conversation between that guy this is not a tip this is a push that is advertising a paid service i loathe this sort of thing so this person is clearly i don't want to say karen but but is is clearly on the side of looking for a fight you know whereas somebody like me who who like is isn't that upset by it so it's all your mileage may vary so totally um totally yeah yeah i think this conversation kind of kind of makes that pretty obvious right like really it depends on who you ask like everybody's going to feel a little bit differently about this it could be as easy as just swiping it away and like what's the big what's the big deal it could also be if it was website which is this is my device like why is this coming into my device and i didn't invite it you know right and the undismissable thing is the weird thing and i have a heart i have a hard time believing that it's truly undismissable um because that is user hostile but we'll see yeah we'll see when it hits your tablet ron richards when i get it we'll see what you think i'm really hoping i get it during the show so we can it can happen oh that would be amazing yes please keep checking\n"