Update: it happened again today. Here’s the ad, and here’s the “proof” it’s coming from Word (when you long-press the notification and tap ‘i’).
It’s been a bit of a running theme lately: advertising in (mobile) operating systems. Today, I was surprised by what I consider a new low, involving incompetence on both Microsoft’s and Google’s end. This new low has been eating away at me all day.
Let’s give a bit of background first. On my smartphone, a Nexus 6P, I have Word, Excel, and PowerPoint installed. I have these installed for my work – I run my translation company, and when new work comes in through e-mail when I’m out and about, I like being able to quickly look at a document before accepting it. Microsoft Office for Android fulfills this role for me. This means I don’t actually use them very often – maybe a few times a week.
Imagine my surprise, then, when this happened. Yes, I’m linking to the full screenshot in its full, glorious, Nexus 6P 1440×2560 brilliance.
I have a few questions. First, why is Microsoft sending me an advertisement in my notification tray? Second, why is Word sending me an advertisement for Excel? Third, why is this allowed by Google, even though the Play Store rules prohibit it? Fourth A, why is Microsoft sending me advertisements for products I already have installed? Fourth B, why is Microsoft sending me advertisements for products I already use? Fourth C, why is Microsoft sending me advertisements for products I already pay for because I have an Office 365 subscription? Fifth, who in their right mind at Microsoft thought this was not a 100%, utterly, completely, deeply, ridiculously, unequivocally, endlessly, exquisitely invasive, stupid, aggravating, off-putting, infuriating, and pointless thing to do?
I know both Android and iOS suffer from scummy applications abusing the notification tray for advertising, and I know both Google and Apple have rules that prohibit this that they do not enforce, but I didn’t think I’d run into it because… Well, I use only proper, honest applications, right? I don’t use the scummy ones? I pay for my applications?
Right?
I think it’s time to start enforcing these rules.
Oh, and Microsoft? I haven’t forgotten about BeOS. It’s not like you have a lot of goodwill to mess around with here.
I’ve noticed several of the Android apps I use (even the legit, well known ones) spamming my notification area with crap. Not necessarily straight up ads… more like those ‘newsletter’ emails that companies send, which nobody asked for or wanted, which are basically just ads in disguise.
But from an advertiser’s perspective, your reaction absolutely confirmed their strategy. Not only did you bring attention to their ad, but you got me (and no doubt others) to look at it.
My hat’s off to Microsoft. Well played, ladies and gentlemen. Well played.
The purpose is to get people paying for their products, not ad-blocking software…
Thumbs up…..you’re absolutely right. Advertising 101 – get as many sets of eyes to read your ad as you can. It’s dirty pool, but it works.
That’s very nice, but until you’re actually prepared to stop using their products they won’t care. From your description of your work environment it seems to me that that is not really an option.
Edited 2016-05-25 03:38 UTC
Actually, since his exact description of the need is “quickly look at a document”, it looks like there *are* alternatives available (a quick look should not require 100% accuracy)
If you take your job seriously, a quick look should still be accurate. Non-Microsoft .doc/.docx handlers are universally terrible, to the point where they disregard entire paragraphs and pages.
I know my tools.
Of course you are free to choose your tools as you are free to complain about their parts you don’t like. But also other people are free to point when a trivial task is trivial.
What you’re doing is the equivalent of telling a carpenter he doesn’t need a hammer because he can just use the handle of a screwdriver to hammer in nails.
You are technically correct in that it is possible, but it’s still a dumb suggestion.
I think the point is, though I’ll be far less accusing, that Microsoft will continue to do things like this and continue to have no reason to change so long as people are willing to use their tools. If their tools are the best for your situation, and they seem to be, that’s fine. It’s just a matter of understanding that so long as Microsoft’s tools are still the best for the majority of situations, they will do whatever they please and walk all over us… and most people will thank them for it!
Oh yeah definitely – but I really like having a roof over my head and food in my belly.
It’s easy to be idealistic about software when your income doesn’t depend on it.
We all do Thom, and I’m not accusing you of anything. I have no patience for software idealism myself. Just trying to frame the point in a, let’s say, more moderate form. I didn’t, after all, tell anyone they should use something else. We all use the best tools for our job, whether they’re the best in our own opinion or the best dictated by what others use (usually the case) doesn’t really matter.
Oh I wasn’t specifically referring to you! Sorry if it came across that way.
No worries. I didn’t take it that way. It contradicts with part of your statement though, from your entry:
They don’t need good will, and they know it. Simple as that. All of us know it too, and they know that we know.
Best tool for the job doesn’t even really apply here.
Because it’s Microsoft’s file format being used by customers.
What is really happening here is because of the network effect.
You contradict yourself. Customers use Microsoft file formats… which makes Microsoft’s tools the best for Thom’s job, yes?
I meant, not a choice is made based on what the best editor or viewer is, but because of the network effect of file formats he’s mostly forced to use something he might not even want.
Ask for a PDF, it is made to look the same universally, Word is not.
I give up. You people have no fucking clue how the translation industry works.
“Ask for a PDF”. That’s the single-most stupid thing I have heard all month. Go start a translation company, and then go demand from your customers that they convert their entire workflow to an incredibly edit-hostile file format that requires a ton of investment into new software, new skills, and an entirely new workflow, only to end up at documents (PDF) most translation (management) software doesn’t like in the first place, while also forcing yourself to invest heavily in proper PDF software, just because some random nerd on the internet opened a document in LibreOpenOffice or whatever the fuck that shit is called today and it “looked just fine”.
Let’s see how long you last as your customers point, laugh, dump your sorry ass, and go to a real translator instead.
It a bit rich to say this when you don’t program and then criticise the software industry being a “failure” because it would be un-economic to start all over.
There’s a distinct and clear difference between criticising the result instead of the process.
I don’t criticise the development *process*; I criticise its *result*. The kind of crap we accept from software we would never accept from any other product on the market. I’m not telling developers “you’re an idiot for using IDE Xyz, you should use IDE Abc”; I’m just saying that regardless of process, the end result is crap – and looking and listening to the people around me, software is, indeed, crap.
Crap software occurs because of failures in the process, the result is a direct consequence of the process.
Once software exists and it is being used it almost can never be changed because any assumptions made are part of the design.
If I thought you were serious, I’d have to laugh at you. I’m just going to assume you’re joking… and laugh anyway. Go edit a pdf. Tell me how that works out for you!
Maybe you should know, that Android office apps send doc/xls/ppt to Microsoft servers for conversion. Also, some other functions are being done in the cloud (print formatting, from the top of the head).
Something to keep in mind, if you sign NDAs in your work.
> Non-Microsoft .doc/.docx handlers are universally terrible, to the point where they disregard entire paragraphs and pages.
This is intentional on Microsoft’s part, and is why the file formats remain entangled with Office’s internals. I have successfully used the OO.org/LO family to work with .doc/.docx for a decade and never had that particular problem, but I suppose I got lucky. Most of people’s alleged problems with Libreoffice vanish when they use a proper file format like .ODT.
It really depends on the document. In my experience, typical documents are easily interchangeable back and forth between MS Office and LibreOffice and generally look the same. Where LO starts to have problems is when it comes to complex documents full of things like nested tables, tight page margins or no margins at all, and so on. It’s these edge cases that show up incompatibilities.
Using another format is great in theory, but a non-runner when you’re dealing with documents coming from many different sources – most people don’t have a clue about file formats. It’s hard enough to get people to understand the difference between .doc and .docx internally in an office, let alone trying to explain to potential customers why their document ends up different on your computer.
But nobody else uses ODT so you are stuck with documents that don’t work properly in LibreOffice.
Guessed as much.
Unfortunately not everyone has the luxury of their income not being locked into vendor-dependent file formats.
#1 could it be an affiliate?? i’m surprised that you can get a pop-up like this on the lock screen! my next phone will be a droid phone of some sort regardless
#2 I would not blame Microsoft for BeOS given the BeOS idiotic CEO + dumb management who turned down $400,000,000.00+benefits from Steve Jobs and Apple
*And they did this when Apple was clearly on the up! (no hindsight here)
*BeOS was roadkill before and after anything Microsoft did. You lot can’t see wood for trees basically
Seriously, microsoft office on a phone?
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=cn.wps.moffice_eng&hl=…
you need to get on message.
MS is all about dual function devices. Just like the ‘Surface Pro’ and the rumoured ‘Surface Phone’.
Not that I disagree at all with your overall outrage, but you may be jumping the gun a bit…
How do you know that Word sent that notification? I don’t have any evidence either way, and Microsoft could certainly be doing something devious here, but if they are actually following the style guide that notification did not come from Word, it came from Excel itself. It is using Excel’s launcher icon, not Words. Using another apps icon like this is a big no-no and I would be surprised if Microsoft was doing that – so I am inclined to think Excel is the app that sent it.
Assuming I am right, and it is Excel that sent it – this is not a violation of Google’s Play Store policy. Is it stupid? Sure, no argument. But it is absolutely within their guidelines. Apps can bug the shit out of you to do things that involve the purpose of the app. Sending you a notification to remind you that the app exists, maybe because you have not run it for a while (or ever), is completely within the Play Stores guidelines.
Again – stupid yes, but not necessarily nefarious. You can of course just turn off notifications for Excel (and all the other Office Apps too) – otherwise any app can do stuff like this, as long as it is doing it for purposes of its own promotion (i.e. not promoting other apps).
The rule is:
“Analysing data on the go” is an integral feature of Excel. It sending you a notification like this to encourage it’s own use is completely compliant with this rule…
Edited 2016-05-25 04:43 UTC
Just to clarify, if I didn’t make it completely clear. This IS an utterly, completely, deeply, ridiculously, unequivocally, endlessly, exquisitely invasive, stupid, aggravating, off-putting, infuriating, and pointless thing to do…
But it is not a rule violation
By definition it’s still an add (as much as promoting a service goes).
I see it as a trend now. Most apps (booking apps, ebay, amazon) do this stuff just to annoy you with offers that mask very well as “notifications”.
If this doesn’t get under control soon, developers will probably just give up on email spamming and just use this.
Sure. I agree. But I think it is telling that the two specific examples of proper use of the notification system given in Google’s guidelines fit your definition of an advertising pretty much spot on.
In other words, at least on Android, one of the things notifications are supposed to be are advertising, not surprising given Google is an advertising company. There is in fact no rule against using notifications for advertising purposes, the rules just limit the scope of what you can advertise. They expect you to use them for advertising.
Its just as bad on iOS though. They specifically, in very plain terms, have a rule that says “Apps cannot use Push Notifications to send advertising, promotions, or direct marketing of any kind” (no weasel words like Google’s rule has).
Apparently no one pays attention to this rule, including Apple. There are hundreds if not thousands of apps that break it routinely. In practice, their review process pretty much follows the same principle as Google’s – just don’t use notifications to advertise things outside of the scope of your app’s function and your in the clear. So promotions for a service sent through an app tied to that service is perfectly fine.
I’m just saying, neither platform actually has (enforced) rules discouraging the use of notifications for this kind of thing. Google explicitly allows it even, but at least their rules (for the most part) seem to be relevant in their review process.
Edited 2016-05-25 08:05 UTC
From Google Play Developer Guidelines:
We don’t allow apps or ads that mimic or interfere with system functionality, such as notifications or warnings. System level notifications may only be used for an app’s integral features, such as an airline app that notifies users of special deals, or a game that notifies users of in-game promotions.
Easy to answer: tapping the ad will open the application store or Excel?
You can just long press the notification – this will bring up an “App Info” item that will link to the management settings for the app that originally set the notification.
I would imagine Thom already cleared it though.
It came from Word. You can check by tapping/holding the notification and tapping the I icon.
Well scratch all my posts then. That is plain fucked up.
I don’t know what Im pissed off about more… That they are using Word to advertise their other apps (which is a rule violation), or that they are masquerading the notification as if it came from a different app (also a rule violation).
Do you actually have powerpoint installed? What happens when you click the notification? Im curious if this is an ad to install the app, or an ad to encourage use of the app…
ps. I use an iPhone now, and neither Word or Excel on iOS even support sending notifications… Outlook and Skype do, but that are communication apps and seemingly use them appropriately. Ive never seen any kind of notification like this from Microsoft apps on iOS.
Edited 2016-05-25 19:19 UTC
Encouraging its own use? With less rationale than an Antivirus scoping itself out to LoJack card games? Really? No. Thanks for reminding me to boot AVG for Panda already.
Moreover it’s a daft ad; a clip logo of a clock and a table? Ooh, gonna get me some o’ that. This is an all new art of Office I hadn’t seen before. <<–yes, it could very well be a partner ad template cranked forth with no attribution or changes; be still my app banhammer.
Edited 2016-05-26 02:35 UTC
SteveNordquist,
I ditched AVG for Avira free several weeks ago and now Avira is spamming me every other day.
When I try to disable them, there’s a dialog that says “How frequent do you want to receive notifications?
– Every 24 hours
– Every 48 hours
– Never (PRO)”
I don’t know if Avira uses delayed spamming or if they just recently implemented it, but now I’m going to try Panda antivirus. Being subjected to ads seems to be the future of software.
What about all that “big phones are not for me” talk from not too long ago?
Is 5,7 inches not big anymore?
I joined in the same thread griping about the trend towards bigger and bigger phones… and I have a nexus 6p.
It’s a good phone. Much better than the 5x. And I get updates on a monthly basis.
It’s also too damned big.
I use office 365 on my Motorola phone and I haven’t received any such messages.
Edited 2016-05-25 12:05 UTC
I find the idea of having Ads on my lock screen repulsive in general. Doesn’t matter if it’s from Microsoft or Mr Clean. I hope Apple will stay away from this practice.
Sadly, they haven’t. This is a common practice on the App Store as well, as the linked article shows. In addition, apple teetered on the line with its Tips application, that spammed users upon arrival of… iOS 7, it was, I think?
How much time do you spend in the App Store?
To be honest Thom, I’ve never seen even one Ad on my iPhone. Obviously your use case is different to mine but I consider IOS relatively benign when it comes to adverts.
On the App Store as in, popular iOS application to this all the time. It’s in the damn link in the article.
Just wandering around unknown -to me- lands, Thom. Have you considered a Document Database?
When words taken on isolation can have a lot of translation options. When taken on groups of two, three, four their translation precision increases by orders of magnitude.
Daring to make a comment on the issue because you have an IT site.
Well, sure; does the one to mind require shared cloud bits, or is it a db that can run on the phone (under vime Org mode) where its interpretation of Office stuff in singularly decent?
About lack of police flow within Microsoft. Is that big the company?
As if every coder does whatever the mood is at the moment. Truly irrespective of those users he|she is serving. Just because he|she can.
Mi wife and daughter have commented of 20-30 notifications dropping on their little Android beast-cells on the morning wake-up. No MS SW.
Notification Intrusivity should be Managed. Sleep, Drive modes, Work, Panic Modes. Log only Mode. Both platform and Apps. And enforcing compliance trough the APIs.
Platform itself could be given general instructions and allowed to perform routine events on its own. Apps could follow a similar police.
[Just a yes|no switch on Notifications IS NOT ENOUGH].
Merchandising should be channeled to different log.
Notification Manager could instance its own Meta-Notications:
“Have noted that you set Sleep Mode around 23:00 Mo-Fri. Would you like me to establish this as routine, unless you instruct otherwise?”
Have almost nothing of this problems on my old FireFoxOS.
A high ponderable of CLASS.
Seriously, I would just uninstall any app that did that, especially one as unnecessary as a Microsoft app on an Android phone.
No, you don’t need it, no matter how much you think you do.
Awful quick to play the armchair employee for someone else, eh?
Will you pay for my lost income?
To be frank, you are the one to have chosen to make your income dependent on the whim of a convicted monopoly – unfortunately a lot of us have.
It is a classic convenience versus freedom dilemma. You can whine all you want, but as long as you are not willing to trade some convenience you cannot expect freedom.
Who cares about “goodwill”, as long we are still paying 🙂
If “some convenience” means “a roof over my head” and “food”, I’ll gladly use Office.
Must be nice to be so rich to be able to not give a fuck about your income. Unfortunately for us peasants, we have to make these tradeoffs in order to, you know, not live on in a cardboard box on the streets.
Because there are enough unfortunate souls who live like that as it is.
Thom, you keep claiming no other suites are up to the challenge and you’d be on the street without MS-Office, but I work with MS documents every day (make much of my living off it) and don’t run any MS software.
I mean, seriously, MS-Office apps didn’t even run on Android phones until very recently and now you can’t get along at all without them? How did you survive prior to MS porting their apps to Android?
I think you’re over-hyping the important of MS-Office a bit. Well, a lot, really. My income also depends on being able to work with multiple document formats, including Microsoft Office (doc, docx, xlsx, etc). I haven’t had to actually run Microsoft Office to do that in over a decade. Yet, I (a mere peasant) still manages to pay the rent.
How many complex Office documents have you worked with? It’s not the straight up documents that flop outside Office, it’s all the “rich” features like macros, custom styles, etc. I hate those things myself, and personally I feel macros have no place in documents, but in a situation like this it’s not up to me, or Thom, or anyone else. You work with what your customer uses, not what you want. Otherwise, you have no customer. Period. That’s how it is, and the customer doesn’t want to hear why what they’re using sucks, or shouldn’t be used, or any other crap. If you can’t do it, they go somewhere else.
The ironic bit is that most of these idealists have no income of their own. That’s why they don’t understand this necessary, though unfortunate, trade off.
There’s no necessity, only the perception of it. You can talk to people, and ask them for a PDF file, something Word now does fine. There’ll be the ones who will fight against it, and there’ll be the ones who will accept it and comply with your request.
If I were to need a service from someone, and that someone tells me he only works with specific files, and it’s not unreasonable to do it, I would do it. For some reason, people often think the one providing a service must obey whatever the customer says, and often is just a matter of asking.
Pausing for a moment all the bad things We can about Microsoft. Them, more than any Company else, have brought Work Software to the mases [and They should keep at it].
Top 5 New Microsoft Tray Notifications
———————————————————————- ———————————-
1. When the phone senses you may need to use the restroom – “Where do you want to go today”
2. Every time you visit a porn site – “Excel…lent!” from Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.
3. Periodically mention the new, hip replacement for Cortana – Bob.
4. If you open a competitors office app, show the video of Ballmer dancing on stage and screaming, with text superimposed – “We know where you live!”
5. IF the user is using Windows Phone…Never mind.
‘Notifying you about excel-ent massage houses around your actual location’.
‘Just right now! and only for 20min make this 50% coupon effective at Cheers House.
‘Would you like me to provide your BestBank card?’
Buttons usual locations changed to say ‘Yes’ when ‘escaping’ the notification in a hurry.
;D
F_(k about user trust.
the article you link to about iOS is about a guy who installed a bunch of corporate apps on his phone then complained they tried to notify him.
that’s not advertising. that’s an app you willfully installed.
lot’s of false equivalents being drawn out there.
promos and ads for software you obviously use or have used is very different than selling your personal info to the highest bidder trying to sell you personal products.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bd/Contortionist_Ra…
nice image of Thom living with a google-phone while complaining about apple’s so-called advertising problems.
you are funny. good image.
but you don’t seem to understand the difference between the message I’m typing to you now and a message brought to you by advertisers.
you also don’t seem to understand the difference between a message generated from a piece of software you own – and use – about another piece of software, and an outside entity using your personal profile to push random products on you.
It’s a false equivalency. Turn the tables and see how you feel — imagine Apple made all their revenue from advertising, ie. selling their user base’s eyeballs the highest bidders in as many places as possible. Everything this apple put out is free as long as you agreed to be tracked and advertised to by anyone and everyone upon use. Free free free, right?
Google, on the other hand, sold you a device and platform for good money that removed or reduced outside advertising wherever possible. To find “advertising” on the google device you’d have to look for things like apps promoting other apps in the system tray, or apps that you opted to install pushing text notifications at you, but other than that you can be sure that you are by design not an advertising customer, you are a computer user. Any tracking and accounts you take part in is by choice, not forced from the OS.
Something tells me you wouldn’t spend much time beating up that Google. You’d laud them.
This scenario is ridiculous though – since Apple is a tech company masquerading as a lifestyle brand, and google is an advertising company masquerading as a tech company.
Isolated from interruptions, should be the default, Ezraz. Anything else should be managed, short, medium&long term BY THE USER.
This is true about anything computer related.
[Panic scream stop? Sorry, updating…]
Users should be conceptualized by the OS as a real-time co-operating system.
A personal computer IS NOT a channel. A cellphone is a channel, BUT A PRIVATE ONE. Any non-private channel flow should ask for permission, in a breve, pertinent and timely mode.
Of IoT, is a privacy hell heading this way. No relief horizon at sight, yet.
Push model is wrong, and will be at anything user related.
That’s my first worry about Google monetizing scheme. Push is a ‘channel’ beast. Nothing to do within a UI.
Also Microsoft is trashing trust, on mixing UI with merchandising channels.
Different, sure. But both are bad. I can like drinking big-name-soda, but that doesn’t mean I want the can yelling ads for more big-name-soda as I drink it, or literally calling me from the fridge to drink it.
But yeah at least its not trying to give me to subscribe to a financial investment service? Or reporting on my cheese preference to its twitter feed.
Correct. And one is much worse than the other.
A — The screaming can of cola can only help/hurt it’s own chances of success. I either love that promo and buy more or hate it and find another brand of cola. It’s contained to marketing itself.
B — Every time I touch that cola it reports on it’s location, surroundings, amount, and whatever data it can deduce, then contacts a server, loads a pre-built hook to thousands of ads from outside parties that spent money to advertise to specific types of cola drinkers, and for the rest of time sends me any number of customized ads based on that data, well this is far more than scenario A.
A is benign. It’s blind marketing.
B is malicious and exploitative.
Only a google apologist and a free-software lover in complete denial would think they are even close to being the same.
I think I agree, but B isn’t that bad. Targeted ads based on my preferences I don’t mind. I’d call that “Benign ” No possible maliciousness or loss of privacy if done correctly.
But blindly giving ( or allowing the third party to obtain) them personally identifying information is still worse and completely unacceptable. That would be ” malicious and exploitative. “, IMHO.
Your B would be like ” Hey try some big-chip-brand chips to go with that big-name-soda! They go great together!”
My example was from big-name-soda’s twitter feed ” Hey look at spiderbill! He drinks big-name-cola at the end of his day to unwind after a long day spent at the docs! He sure does visit a lot of taverns on the bad side of town… When will he learn that true refreshment is waiting for him in his fridge!”
It’s probably been pointed out already, but whatever. Google has their Docs thing to promote. They have no incentive to prevent Microsoft from willfully annoying Office users.
Just be glad that the world’s greatest drag to software progress is finally dying and doing its best to expedite its own demise. Once the technically incompetent digital natives generation joins the work force, that’ll be the end of MS Office document crap. The coming generation won’t know what a file is.