I use a Verizon Android smartphone, the Droid 4, but I’ve never used any of Verizon‘s built-in Android applications or gone to its app. store. It turns out I wasn’t the only one. By January 2013. Verizon won’t just be removing its apps from the market, it will start deleting its Verizon specific apps from your Android or Blackberry smartphone.

Why? Verizon isn’t saying in detail. but there’s no secret here. People dislike carrier-specific software. Android users in particular have never had much love for the bloatware that carriers routinely load on smartphones. Worse still, a lot of the bloatware came with security holes.

Despite this, for years, the carriers, including Verizon, resisted selling smartphones with stock Android. Verizon may not be ready to load pure Android with no Verizon specific changes on their smarpthones, but  the company that they’re not making any friends, nor profits, with their pre-loaded apps.

Verizon gets out of the Android and Blackberry app business. More >