Get ready for apps that appear in the night

A new digital service, called Ignite, will let carriers automatically add more apps to smartphones once they've been sold, and their owners won't be able to stop it.

A new digital service, called Ignite, will let carriers automatically add more apps to smartphones once they've been sold, and their owners won't be able to stop it.

No one likes 'bloatware,' the apps and services pre-installed on Android smartphones and tablets by their manufacturers and by network operators. Not only do they eat into valuable on-board memory space, they may be unnecessary or, worse still, poor imitations of other apps -- such as navigation, note taking or music streaming services -- that owners actually do want to install and use.

And thanks to a company called Digital Turbine they may become even more common. Its new service, Ignite, allows both device manufacturers and the companies that sell subsidized handsets with a contract to push new apps out onto a consumer's device.

The idea behind the new service, first reported on by Forbes, is to save companies time. Developing and authorizing 'bloatware' apps is time consuming and Ignite will enable devices to ship and be sold more quickly without the apps which can then be pushed out as compulsory over the air updates at a later time.

According to Forbes, Digital Turbine's new service is legal and already boasts major US carriers Verizon and T-Mobile as customers.