when i test TCL 50XL In a recent review, I was disappointed to find that the phone came preloaded with T-Mobile Play feed and Google Discover. This feed isn’t limited to this TCL phone, though, as the feed occasionally appears with several phones sold by the carrier – in this case, the TCL 50 XL is exclusive to the T-Mobile carrier, so It’s no surprise to see this information attached with an extra brand boost.
To be fair, T-Mobile isn’t the only company doing this practice of pre-installing apps and content. Verizon and AT&T have long packaged their own apps onto phones sold by the carriers, a practice often referred to as “bloatware” because customers who buy the phones don’t actively ask for the preinstalled apps. Worse, sometimes they fail to uninstall, leaving you looking like you’re stuck with the app.
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T-Mobile Play is one of the harder apps to uninstall, but you can disable and hide the Play feed by making changes in the Settings menu. This will reduce the influence of T-Mobile branding when you use your phone and free up your Google Discover feed to only show articles and videos recommended by the service’s algorithm. Because frankly, just having an algorithm-generated news service on your Android phone is enough.
This solution isn’t new – I discovered it four years ago on the OnePlus subreddit page. Nonetheless, I was able to successfully remove T-Mobile Play sources from my TCL 50 XL using the following steps. A T-Mobile representative did not respond for comment when asked if there were other ways to turn off this information.
But so much for the backstory. Here’s how to eliminate T-Mobile Play sources:
First, open your settings application and go to Application areas list. This may be labeled application on your phone.
The T-Mobile Play app is listed in the app list.
scroll down to T-Mobile Games application and select it.
You will get the option to disable the T-Mobile Play app.
On the corresponding page, you next need to click deactivate options.
A submenu will appear confirming that you want to deactivate the application.
After selecting Deactivate, a submenu will pop up confirming that you want to deactivate the application. Then you will click Disable application confirm. To complete the change, you need to turn your phone off and on again, or restart your phone from the power menu.
The Google Discover feed is now no longer dependent on the T-Mobile Play feed.
Once your phone restarts, you’ll now see a separate Google Discover feed that’s completely separate from your T-Mobile Play feed. If you later decide to change your mind, you can repeat these steps to enable the feed again and it will appear after another reset.
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