Most of the android phones I’ve had came preinstalled with something called “Mobile Services”. I normally remove it because it just keeps randomly installing apps and games that don’t want but I’ve never had an active phone plan on those phones. If I disabled it from my phone, would I still be able to send and receive calls and texts?

So far the only thing I have found out is that “Mobile Services” is an app that is only preinstalled on android phones who’s carrier is Tracfone.

Edit: Even though I wasn’t able to get an answer, I’ve decided to just disable it. I wont be manually testing it and I wont be updating this post with results. I no longer care at this point and I wont be responding to anymore comments about this.

  • catloaf@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    13 days ago

    Disable it and find out. It’s easy enough. You can reenable it if it breaks something.

    • vortexal@sopuli.xyzOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      13 days ago

      I’d try that but I don’t want to end up finding out that disabling it permanently disables my phone’s service. My phone’s service is through Tracfone and they are the developers of the app.

      • trolololol@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        13 days ago

        There’s at least one way to reverse it, by wiping the phone clean during a total reset, like what you would do if you sell the phone.

        • vortexal@sopuli.xyzOP
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          13 days ago

          I would consider doing that but I’d rather not have to go through the process of re-downloading all my apps and re-customizing my phone just because I disabled a potentially important app.

      • catloaf@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        13 days ago

        It won’t.

        Or at least it really shouldn’t. I can’t imagine that happening. I wouldn’t hesitate to do it on my own phone.

        • vortexal@sopuli.xyzOP
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          13 days ago

          I would try but I don’t want to disable something if I don’t know for sure that it’s safe to disable.

          • BearOfaTime@lemm.ee
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            0
            ·
            13 days ago

            Disabling something on your phone will have no impact on your account.

            Without knowing the phone, and the exact package name, we have no idea what this is.

            Get the Universal Android Debloat Utility, it’s pretty good at letting you know what can be disabled.

            • vortexal@sopuli.xyzOP
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              0
              ·
              13 days ago

              It’s not the account that I’m worried about. It’s hard for me to explain what I’m actually concerned about. I guess an example would be that the SIM card becomes invalid or something. One of the phones where I disabled Mobile Services has an effectively permanent error at the top of the screen that says “invalid SIM card”.

            • vortexal@sopuli.xyzOP
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              0
              ·
              13 days ago

              I forgot to mention these in my previous comment but I’ve added some information about the app in my post. As for that app that you mentioned, I’ve never used ADB commands before and I don’t want to risk bricking my phone, so I don’t know if I’m going to use it.

        • vortexal@sopuli.xyzOP
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          13 days ago

          Yes but it’s still possible and I have yet to see someone mention that they were able to disable it and still use their phone service.