Amazon launched its Prime Exclusive Phone program in 2016 with handsets like the Motorola Moto G. It was the exact same handset that customers could purchase from Motorola but Amazon offered it at a slightly discounted price to Prime members as long as they didn’t mind seeing ads on the lockscreen. Amazon has since expanded the program to several other mid-range devices but the company now decided to change a fundamental aspect of this program. Amazon has confirmed that it’s removing the lockscreen ads from Prime Exclusive Phone devices via a software update.
All new devices sold through the Prime Exclusive Phone program will no longer display lockscreen ads while the upcoming software update will remove them from all existing devices. The company will even allow owners of these handsets to customize their lockscreen wallpaper which they couldn’t do before because the space had been earmarked for advertisements.
Amazon says that it’s removing lockscreen ads to facilitate the use of fast unlocking technologies like fingerprint sensors and facial recognitions that have more or less made the lockscreen somewhat obsolete.
To be clear, just because the company is doing away with lockscreen ads doesn’t mean it’s shutting down this project. It will continue to offer discounted devices through the Prime Exclusive Phone program and they’re an even better deal now because customers no longer have to deal with lockscreen ads.
However, customers will have to bear with Amazon’s pre-installed apps which include Prime Music and Prime Video. There’s an Amazon Widget as well, all of these software additions can’t be removed from these devices.
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