HTC says it's addressing its 'Touchpal' keyboard ad problem

HTC has had a difficult couple of years. The company has been producing solid phones for a couple of generations now, but its almost total lack of marketing in the United States has left it in the shadow of players like Samsung and LG. And while you might think the company would be working to improve its public image, a recent update to the TouchPal keyboard app is leaving users with quite a bad taste in their mouth.

The update enables banner ads at the top of the keyboard at seemingly random times, which is probably the last place you would want to see advertising. Since the ads are within the keyboard app itself and not any other particular service, you’re going to be seeing these banner advertisements throughout most of your Android experience.

HTC needs more than great hardware to make a comeback

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HTC has commented on the matter via Twitter stating that this was a genuine error and not a poorly conceived attempt to monetize its keyboard app (note that this app is monetized if you download it from the Play Store separately on a non-HTC phone), some users aren’t convinced and claim to have already uninstalled the app (you can see those replies in the Twitter thread). Intentional or not, it seems like it could cost HTC some keyboard users.

Due to an error, some customers are seeing ads on the phone keyboard. We’re working to fix the error and remove these as quickly as possible

Hopefully HTC can fix this issue before it loses more Touchpal keyboard users.

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