Motorola Crybabies

[poloponies]

Apparently, Android apps suck...battery life. Motorola is blaming customer returns for poor phone performance on the Android app market.

http://www.electronista.com/articles/11/06/02/motorola.ceo.jha.blames.returns.on.bad.app.quality/

 

[Tarzanman]

Apparently, Android apps suck...battery life. Motorola is blaming customer returns for poor phone performance on the Android app market.

http://www.electronista.com/articles/11/06/02/motorola.ceo.jha.blames.returns.on.bad.app.quality/

It is no secret that Android phones use a lot of power. Some phones are better than others. I don't think it is a problem that will ever be solved.

There is a price to pay for having an electronic device in your pocket that is stronger than a 15 year old desktop computer that was cutting edge in its day.

Oh... and this device does quadruple duty as a video camera, music player and wireless phone.

Really. Any child can make your own movie and send it to the other side of the planet in less than a minute using these devices.

 

[wordoflife]

It is no secret that Android phones use a lot of power. Some phones are better than others. I don't think it is a problem that will ever be solved.

Manufacturer's adding their own crapware certainly doesn't make it better either. But yes, that's the nature of Android. But having things running in the background is nice if your phone has a big battery or if you don't use your phone that much. Worst case scenario, I'd carry one of those portable battery chargers

 

[RafaelT]

Maybe they should have taken that into consideration before using someone else operating system that lacks refinement in both OS and apps on their hardware. They can't really complain about it, they made the choice.

 

[rjohnstone]

Sanjay Jha is a retard for a CEO and what he just said is utter crap.
He's the same moron who said the reason the Atrix did so poorly was do to the lapdock bundling prices. Umm... no. It did poorly because the phone that was released was NOT the phone they marketed the crap out of.
What we got was a locked down, stripped down, slowed down device that was marginally better than other phones on the market. Not the Dual Core 4G blazing fast beast that was supposed to be "developer friendly". Their words.

But back on topic...

Yes, there are battery eating apps in the Market. To say otherwise would be a flat out lie. But... the "poor, battery eating app" Moto fails to see is their own Blur and Motoblur UI and back end services.
It eats batteries faster than any app I've ever seen (excluding hotspot apps).

While you cannot completely remove Blur (another pain point for Moto devices), you can freeze most of it with TiBU.
Shockingly enough, battery performance improved dramatically once you take Blur out of the equation. 😱

The closer you get a Moto device down to pure Android, the better it performs.
This has been proven again and again with many other devices as well.

 

[ImperialX]

The closer you get a Moto device down to pure Android, the better it performs.

This. There is a reason why Android owners always root and get vanilla Android, if not a Custom ROM based off the stock version.

 

[ChazUK]

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Lame excuse is lame Moto. Stop injecting turd into Android and your sales and return rates would be much better. Releasing the Atrix with Froyo wasn't the best idea either.

 

[Wicked1]

I would love to see Apple license a variant of thier iOS to other manufacturers, that would be the end of Android, or at least Apple will take at least 60-70% market share as everyone knows how good Apple's devices are with battery life and App managment.

I will stick with the few restrictions Apple gives me with my iPhone 4 in return for good battery life a slew of Multimedia entertainment Apps, Music, Movies, Videos etc on iTunes. Oh and my phone, it just works well all around.

Android os is nice but just like a PC running Windows too many variables that do not get fully tested. If you buy three different PC's with similar specs from 3 diff MFG's running the same OS, you get a lot of different results in the way they perform, kinda like Android on all these phones.

 

[nefan65]

I've read a few posts about the "Vanilla" Android argument. I agree, phone makers need to go to this model for the longterm success of Android. Problem is, they never will...HTC is starting by taking off some of the limitations of locking the bootloader, etc.

I guess my pain in all this, and argument, is "Why should users have to do any of that to make a phone work?". Anyone should be able to go to the store, get their new device, activate it, and be done. I shouldn't have to download a ROM, root it, change bootloaders, etc. just to make it work correctly...IMHO...

I guess that's why I'll stick with the iPhone. Not saying it's perfect, it's not. But of all of the phones out there, it's the closest thing to what a handset/OS should be...

 

[NebulaClash]

Well, that's the thing isn't it? The hacker types don't mind rooting their device, and for them Android makes a lot of sense.

The big middle of the consumer market, on the other hand, wants things that just work for them, and Apple caters to this group. Thus the market share Apple continues to have in the tablet market despite now having several competitors.

 

[kenypowa]

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Lame excuse is lame Moto. Stop injecting turd into Android and your sales and return rates would be much better. Releasing the Atrix with Froyo wasn't the best idea either.

This is funny. Sense UI and TouchWiz runs silky smooth in Sensation and Galaxy S2, yet Motoblur is layygy and choppy even on its dual-core flagship phone, Atrix.

Motorola puts out the Droid, which was a great product. Everything after that has been mediocre, not to mentioned the botched release of the Xoom. There is a reason why HTC & Samsung Android sales have been taking off while Motorola sales have slumped.

 

[maflynn]

Motorola had the opportunity to really take android and increase their bottom line and make android very successful.

The problem that moto has to deal with is

• Crapware that cannot be removed unless you root the device.
• Encrypted bootloader preventing loading custom roms.
• Slow updates to android.
• Buggy updates to android.

To be honest their motoblur UI doesn't suck too much, I prefer the email client they they provided over the stock android one. Its much more exchange friendly.

I was incredibly dissatisfied that I could not remove the crapware which runs in the background and impacting battery/performance.

More then that, I couldn't believe how slow moto was in delivering updates whether minor or major to android. They are probably the slowest of the bunch (HTC, samsung, etc). When they have delivered it, I was shocked to see how buggy it was and I had to wait another 2+ months just for them to get around to fixing those bugs that shouldn't have been in there in the first place.

If moto was able to keep android clean and fast, while providing timely clean bugfree updates, we'd not be having this discussion. As it stands they continually shoot themselves in the foot.

I loved my Nexus One when I owned it, stock android, updates were fast and bug free. Moving to VZW/Droidx I was spoiled and thinking it would be much of the same, but alas it wasn't

 

[Krevnik]

Lame excuse is lame Moto. Stop injecting turd into Android and your sales and return rates would be much better. Releasing the Atrix with Froyo wasn't the best idea either.

Part of it is that phone makers don't want to be 'just another OEM'. The big buzzword here is differentiation. They want their phone to be different from HTC's, Samsung's and so on. HTC and Samsung are the same way. Android is popular among OEMs for having a single platform they can customize to the point that a Moto phone isn't the same as a HTC phone.

The problem with this idea is that these companies don't invest in the software side as much as they need to in order to pull this off. This leads to bad devices, and honestly, even if it was apps making Moto look bad, it is on Moto to address that with their devices, even if it means not using Android.

 

[wxman2003]

There is always going to be people complaining about battery life on their phone, no matter who makes. Seems like every other day someone posts on this forum about the poor battery life with ios 4.3.3. So it's not unique to Motorola or others.

 

[Tarzanman]

There is always going to be people complaining about battery life on their phone, no matter who makes. Seems like every other day someone posts on this forum about the poor battery life with ios 4.3.3. So it's not unique to Motorola or others.

The closer iOS gets to Android in terms of features and specs, then the worse the battery life will get.

 

[NebulaClash]

The closer iOS gets to Android in terms of features and specs, then the worse the battery life will get.

I disagree. You forget that as time goes by battery tech improves. So my assumption is that as iOS grows in features, so will battery tech improve. By the time iOS has everything Android has, the battery life will be fine for both. Apple introduces tech when it's ready for ordinary consumer consumption. Android takes a kitchen sink approach to features, ready or not.

 

[blueroom]

Well, that's the thing isn't it? The hacker types don't mind rooting their device, and for them Android makes a lot of sense.

+1

I listened to a podcast awhile ago that the hosts mentioned "folks that use Android are often the type that won't pay a dime for an app"

If I was much younger I would enjoy rooting and hacking an OS, now I just want something that works.

 

[rjohnstone]

+1

I listened to a podcast awhile ago that the hosts mentioned "folks that use Android are often the type that won't pay a dime for an app"

If I was much younger I would enjoy rooting and hacking an OS, now I just want something that works.

That may have been true early in Androids life cycle, but many Android users don't hack their phones and they actually pay for apps.
There are a few I have that cost real money, not .99 cents.

The software and market have matured nicely although there is still plenty of room for improvement.
The biggest issue is handset makers trying to mold Android into something it's not.
Moto being the biggest culprit.

 

[Rodimus Prime]

That may have been true early in Androids life cycle, but many Android users don't hack their phones and they actually pay for apps.
There are a few I have that cost real money, not .99 cents.

The software and market have matured nicely although there is still plenty of room for improvement.
The biggest issue is handset makers trying to mold Android into something it's not.
Moto being the biggest culprit.

well you have to say one thing about Motoblur is of all the custom roms they are the one that are the closes to vanilla android.

My biggest issue with Motoralla is the VERY VERY slow update process and I really hope they improve that a lot. I would love to get Icecream sandwich on my Atrix with in 2-3 months of it being released.

 

[rjohnstone]

well you have to say one thing about Motoblur is of all the custom roms they are the one that are the closes to vanilla android.

My biggest issue with Motoralla is the VERY VERY slow update process and I really hope they improve that a lot. I would love to get Icecream sandwich on my Atrix with in 2-3 months of it being released.

Given their track record on Gingerbread (still not available), I seriously doubt the Atrix will see ICS before the end of next year if at all.
Moto would rather sell you a new phone than add improvements to an existing product.
Remember they said the Atrix would be one of the first phones to run Gingerbread... I guess they meant "their" phones, but even that is not the case as the Droid X got it already and the Droid Pro is next.

 

[Rodimus Prime]

Given their track record on Gingerbread (still not available), I seriously doubt the Atrix will see ICS before the end of next year if at all.
Moto would rather sell you a new phone than add improvements to an existing product.
Remember they said the Atrix would be one of the first phones to run Gingerbread... I guess they meant "their" phones, but even that is not the case as the Droid X got it already and the Droid Pro is next.

yeah I am not holding my breath on it but not that the Atrix is in other countries it will be a lot easier to know who to point the finger at. Is it AT&T or Motorola. AT&T is one of the worse if not the worse of the carriers at getting updates rolled out on. They were one of the last to get the froyo update for the Captivated. By the time they got it there were gingerbread beta floating about for other carriers.
I know with Blackberry they are one of the last to get ANY OS update. The 8900 never got OS5 update while there were multiple OS5 updates over seas which I installed on my 8900. VVM never worked on it because AT&T would not allow it on the 8900. the Bold 9000 never got OS 5.0 but guess what rest of the world got it.

AT&T is just slow as hell at allowing updates and if they had their way the iPhone would never get update either. I just hope the pressure they are getting will push them more.
The OEM just need to break out the carrier stuff from there OS and update everything but the carrier part.

 

[rjohnstone]

AT&T is just slow as hell at allowing updates and if they had their way the iPhone would never get update either. I just hope the pressure they are getting will push them more.
The OEM just need to break out the carrier stuff from there OS and update everything but the carrier part.

AT&T hasn't been too bad with the Atrix. We got two decent updates in 2 months. Granted they were bug fixes, but they included HSUPA.

The key for the OEM's is to simply sell them with an unlocked bootloader.
So far Samsung, Sony and HTC have told AT&T to stuff it and unlocked their bootloaders. I think LG is there or almost there too. Moto refuses to give an answer the subject.

Let the consumer decide what they want to put on their phones.
Granted it kills the warranty, but that should be the consumers choice, not the carriers.

 

[Rodimus Prime]

AT&T hasn't been too bad with the Atrix. We got two decent updates in 2 months. Granted they were bug fixes, but they included HSUPA.

The key for the OEM's is to simply sell them with an unlocked bootloader.
So far Samsung, Sony and HTC have told AT&T to stuff it and unlocked their bootloaders. I think LG is there or almost there too. Moto refuses to give an answer the subject.

Let the consumer decide what they want to put on their phones.
Granted it kills the warranty, but that should be the consumers choice, not the carriers.

Yeah it was nice of AT&T but AT&T history shows me other wise. I would say let the OEM handle the OS and things like HSUPA AT&T can control that being released. It was annoying it took so long before we really got HSUPA speed boost.

I heard a rumor Motola is working on a way to allow people to unlock the bootload that will be a lot like Sony's. That is you give them the device serial number so they can market the warranty as invalid and they will unlock the bootloader.
I would be fine with that. Unlocking the bootloader means you give up your warranty. HTC orginally had it so if you unlocked your bootloader it was marked a chip and nothing you could do about it.

Last rumor I read today is Atrix should get gingerbread late June early July proving AT&T does not muck it up but if it is released to phones over seas that means the it is signed so we could flash it to our phones here.

 

[rjohnstone]

Yep... I'd be willing to waive my warranty so I could build and load my own ROM's.
Signing the bootloader serves no practical purpose other than preventing the consumer from performing their own updated/upgrades.

I read that Sony's waiver on the warranty does not impact the hardware entirely.
There are limitations put in place as to what is warranted, but manufacturing defects are still covered.

 

[Vegastouch]

Manufacturer's adding their own crapware certainly doesn't make it better either. But yes, that's the nature of Android. But having things running in the background is nice if your phone has a big battery or if you don't use your phone that much. Worst case scenario, I'd carry one of those portable battery chargers

Doesnt really have anything to do with it because you can delete that stuff. I do hate the crapware though.

I dont know what Blur is since i havent owned a Motorola phone since this one