Why are we still fighting smartphone bloatware in 2025?

As a Pixel daily driver for the past couple of years, I’ve become accustomed to the sleek and unintrustive nature of Pixel UI. However, OPPO’s return to UK shores has my inner photographer excited, so this morning, I rushed to boot up the Find X8 Pro, only for ColorOS to stop me in my tracks. Holy crab, I thought, that’s a ton of bloatware!

Honestly, nothing takes the shine off a swanky new flagship faster than spam notifications and wasting even just a handful of minutes uninstalling apps you never wanted and will never use. No one has enjoyed doing this in the past two decades of smartphones, so who keeps telling the brand bigwigs to keep up with this utter nonsense?