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Android users outraged over Motorola's broken promise

80 points| iProject | 13 years ago |news.cnet.com

90 comments

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[+] navs|13 years ago|reply
This is what keeps me from android. I'm sure there are other android phones out there that receive updates but until I do a fair amount of research I won't know for sure. My days of carefully researching device purchases are behind me. I just want to walk into a store, buy a new phone and know for the next 2-3 years I'll get all the latest updates.

EDIT: Android phone recommendations?

[+] paul9290|13 years ago|reply
What keeps me from Android is...

- The whole fragmentation and apps being made for iPhone first and sometimes never even making it to Android

- There is no Android store to take my device for a quick free fix or free replacement (Apple has replaced many of my idevices at no cost and done so quickly)

- A new Android device is released weekly; many cheap inexpensive ones. It just doesn't feel sexy/special to me as there is one iPhone millions lust for and the press and consumers go ape nuts over.

- The carriers and device manufacturers have a stranglehold on Android. Many Android users are not able to update their 2010 or 2011 Android device to 2012/2013 software as you can choose to do so with the iPhone. Also the device manufacturers create they own UI and add bells whistles. Android does not have one UI/UX to rule them all like iPhone.

With that being said as a long time iPhone owner .. I am annoyed by....

- Apple's tight control on it's ecosystem .. it indeed stifles innovation. I wish they would allow developers to build onto the built in apps (plug ins) like the camera, maps, alarm clock, facetime and other built in apps.

- New Maps definitely a step down from Google Maps

Overall I just wish there was only one Android device in which the UI/UX is controlled by Google. That would solve my Android complaints, but Google's M.O. is to be on as many devices as possible and thus Android doesn't work for me.

[+] div|13 years ago|reply
This is what drove me away from Android and just made me get an iPhone.

Much like you, I'm done with researching what device to get for weeks, finally settling on one (with the necessary compromises) and then get shafted anyway.

Plenty happy with my iPhone so far, I may reconsider Android once the no-upgrade, crappy custom skin, comes with crapware problems it's riddled with are resolved.

[+] mtgx|13 years ago|reply
Nexus devices are your best bet, but I think even Google intends to only update them for about 18 months, or one update short of 2 years. For example Nexus S was released in the fall of 2010, and I doubt it will get the Android 4.2 update from this fall, not because they can't do it, but because they won't want to do it.

Microsoft has also only promised 18 months of upgrades for their WP8 devices. But I think 18 months is too little. It should be at least 2 years or 2 major upgrades. For example, any new device that comes with an Android 4.x version should receive at least the Android 5.0 and Android 6.0 upgrades (and of course anything in between them). Any new Android 5.x device should get every update up to Android 7.0 (including the Android 7.0 update).

I would be quite satisfied with such an upgrade process. That's what I'd call quality customer support. Am I being unreasonable to ask for this? Is Apple really the only company that can do this? In that case, I'm not surprised they are so much more successful than the others who forget about their customers almost the moment after they sold them the new phone.

[+] veemjeem|13 years ago|reply
Go with any Google phone, they're developer friendly, support jailbreaking without doing anything crazy, has good upgrade path, and supported by 3rd party mods like cyanogenmod. All the other phones are basically crap -- you'll get one upgrade option if you're lucky, and it probably won't get 3rd party mod support. My Nexus S can get up to jellybean even though it started from gingerbread. I suspect the future Google phones would have a similar level support.

I also owned the nexus one, but sad that it wouldn't go past gingerbread.

[+] bookwormAT|13 years ago|reply
"This is what keeps me from android"

I don't get this argument. These Motorola phones are all using a unix like operating system. So why don't you say "That is what keeps me from unix like operating systems", which includes the iPhone?

Stop thinking of Android as a Smartphone. Your confusion will vanish immediately: The Galaxy sucks? Don't buy Galaxy anymore. Motorola does not support devices well? Then stay away from Motorola! (At least until the changed course for the mothership).

Apple is known for great long term support, so is Google. Buying a device from on of them usually guarantees good support.

Asus has a good track record as well. Samsung is not that great, but they still give software support for the Touchwiz OS on their Galaxy line for 12-18 months. This usually includes 2 major Android versions.

I'm not in the US, but I hear Verizon, Spring and AT&T provide horrible software support. Never buy a smartphone that has one of their Logos on it.

Your experience with a smartphone depends on a combination of hardware, software and service. Android is none of the three things, it's just the technology that most vendors use as the base for their software. It has nothing to do with service.

[+] daleharvey|13 years ago|reply
Buy a google device (galaxy nexus), simple
[+] kmfrk|13 years ago|reply
Google's phone are probably preferable, because their direct incentive is to grow Android and its popularity.

Other handset manufacturers have incentives that don't always align with an optimal user experience.

In general, it's better to get a phone whose manufacturers are involved in the OS like Apple, Microsoft/Nokia, and Google.

[+] yichi|13 years ago|reply
Can anyone tell me what's the obsession with updating the OS? I've been trying to turn off OS updates for android because it's very annoying.
[+] smegel|13 years ago|reply
Motorola Razr Maxx. Killer battery life - i get 2 days of heavy usage, would get a week or more of light usage. Updated to ICS from Moto. Specs are soso but dual core plus 16gb flash is plenty for me - no way would i trade specs for battery life given that most top line Android phones struggle to last a single day. Oh, and build quality is very nice (it is a Motorola).
[+] tatsuke95|13 years ago|reply
As a "geek", it will probably drive you crazy to not have ICS. As a regular phone user, Gingerbread will do everything you need it to, and you probably wouldn't even notice it isn't the latest and greatest.
[+] yesimahuman|13 years ago|reply
I bought the Atrix, one of these phones. Worst device I ever bought. To think the iPhone 4 was the exact same price but such a bigger value makes it hard for me to want to go Android again.
[+] darkstalker|13 years ago|reply
Samsung devices have a pretty good stock ROMs out of the box. Never had the need to flash my Galaxy S2. And they have flashing-free and reversible rooting methods.
[+] coopdog|13 years ago|reply
He said it was a resourcing issue, they didn't have the resources to patch every phone and considered every option. Except, it seems... paying for more resources?

I'm just glad to be on a Galaxy Nexus with OTA updates direct from Google. Even then the version I was on was configured not to receive OTA updates as it was a Nexus Samsung ROM not a Nexus Google ROM. It took reflashing the Google image using community tools, something that is mostly not possible for most of the population.

I suppose the only solution is greater awareness of the issue, to increase demand for better support

[+] mtgx|13 years ago|reply
Another solution for lack of resources would be reducing complexity. They need to release fewer models a year and promote only those throughout the year. Of course they need a lot more resources for upgrades if they release a different model every month.

Rumors say that starting with Android 4.2, and especially with Android 5.0, Google will start upgrading all "Nexus certified" devices (and everyone can make such a device, if they want, under strict rules). I really hope that's true, and I hope the market starts moving towards those devices rather than regular Android ones so it incentivizes manufacturers to build them. I also hope Google intends to upgrade them for 2 years since the phone's launch.

http://androidandme.com/2012/10/news/rumor-android-4-2-to-fe...

Reducing complexity could also be done if Google released only one major upgrade per year, instead of two. That way it's much less work for manufacturers, too, and most users don't have to be 2 versions behind all the time (like most are on Gingerbread right now). Hopefully Google intends to only release Android 5.0 next year, and that's it. It should also make it easier for developers, who don't have to worry about 5 different API versions at once.

[+] StavrosK|13 years ago|reply
I don't understand the problem. Why can we upgrade our computers' OSes so easily, while it's impossible to do it for phones? Don't they have drivers for all their parts so you can just plug them in the OS's API and have the newer versions just work?

Why does it take so much work?

[+] justin66|13 years ago|reply
> He said it was a resourcing issue, they didn't have the resources to patch every phone and considered every option. Except, it seems... paying for more resources?

Yeah, and this is the part that's so strange. Attach a dollar figure to how much it would have cost to broaden the list of updated phones. Then consider that Google/Motorola is basically drowning in money and that the dollar figure is just a rounding error.

Google buying Motorola was always kind of mysterious. Now it's more mysterious. Google, why would you do something like that if you weren't going to, at a minimum, make sure that they support your stuff as well as possible?

[+] nradov|13 years ago|reply
Anyone who was cheated by Motorola should sue them for the price of the phone in small claims court. Motorola might be able to weasel out and win the case depending on the actual language of what they promised. But if enough customers sue them it will create a PR nightmare and major legal expense to the extent that they will be forced to reverse their decision.
[+] cma|13 years ago|reply
You might have a case for promissory estoppel if you bought one after they claimed they would upgrade. If you bought one before? Not so much.
[+] guelo|13 years ago|reply
It feels like something the FTC should get involved with, false advertising.
[+] raverbashing|13 years ago|reply
You know what

Users can cry me a river.

Motorola has repeatedly broken their promises. This is not the first time a new phone is not upgraded.

I won't touch a Motorola phone, yes, even with Google. I may opt for a Android phone next, but other manufacturers have presented more upgrade options.

Incompetence runs deeply in some organizations

This is a big sore thumb for Android, something that Google should really enforce against the big vendors.

[+] SideburnsOfDoom|13 years ago|reply
Yep. My first thought was "is anyone actually surprised by this?"
[+] ck2|13 years ago|reply
They are not stuck at all. If they had bought an apple, microsoft or blackberry phone they would have been stuck.

But because they are on an open source android device they have cyanogenmod which is even better than stock and either has or has coming ICS for their model.

This is pretty revolutionary for mobile devices where you no longer are slaved to the manufacturer. Credit to google?

[+] mdasen|13 years ago|reply
CyanogenMod doesn't exist for the Motorola Photon.

It's great to say that open source means you have the power, but most people can't reverse-engineer a driver.

In fact, it seems like none of the newer, popular Android devices are supported by CyanogenMod. Looking through the Android phones from the top three American carriers, I see:

Motorola: RAZR M, RAZR MAXX, RAZR, Photon Q 4G LTE, ADMIRAL, Atrix HD

Samsung: Galaxy S III, Galaxy Stellar, Stratosphere, Droid Charge, Galaxy Nexus, Conquer 4G, Replenish, Transform Ultra, Galaxy Victory, Galaxy S II (Sprint), Galaxy Note, Galaxy Exhilarate, Galaxy S II Skyrocket, Captivate Glide, Rugby Smart

LG: Intuition, Lucid, Spectrum, Enlighten, Optimus Elite, Optimus S, Viper 4G LTE, Escape, Nitro HD

HTC: Incredible 4G LTE, Rhyme, Rezound, Hero, One X, Vivid

Pantech: Marauder, Breakout, Flex, Burst, Pocket

Casio: G'zOne Commando

Kyocera: Rise, Milano

ZTE: Fury

Sony: Xperia ion

That's a list of every Android phone offered by the big four American carriers. There isn't a single device for Sprint or Verizon (accounting for over half the market) that CyanogenMod supports. With AT&T, you're limited to the Galaxy S II Skyrocket (and, really, you'd want the S III). There's also not a device released in 2012 that CyanogenMod supports. CyanogenMod gave me a workable system at a time when Samsung abandoned my device having never fixed major bugs. However, with newer devices, CyanogenMod seems to be slipping behind. If you're buying a nice Android device today and putting out $200, you're getting something like a Galaxy S III, a One X, or a RAZR M and it isn't clear that you'll be getting much support for your device (from the manufacturer, carrier, Google, or third parties).

I bought into Android with high hopes. I understand how crappy Apple's closed model is. However, Android is making you beholden to the device manufacturer and your carrier in the same way iPhone users are beholden to Apple - unless you can reverse engineer device drivers. I know, in theory, you could hire someone or whatnot, but in practice Apple supports their devices for many years while Android phones may never see updates. Buying an Android phone has to be a purchase where you assume you won't even get an OS that exists today unless it's pre-loaded on the phone. Android manufacturers bought themselves a year of "but it's going to change" when they made the pledge. That pledge fell through as soon as it came time to actually provide the upgrades.

Saying that they aren't stuck is somewhat akin to saying that poor people could just go out and become rich. Sure, in theory, there are always opportunities and whatnot, but it just isn't that easy. In reality, Google didn't free us, but tethered us to manufacturers that care less and carriers that are even worse. If Google were to be credited here, I think they should have insisted on a model where device manufacturers release drivers (ala Windows) so that users could install Android from any source. Even better would be to have those drivers be open source so that users could update them (providing updates is going to be easier than reverse engineering). That would have led to real options.

[+] coopdog|13 years ago|reply
Actually the people who installed the last motorola patches actually had the ability to flash their phone removed with that patch, so they can't even install cyanogenmod.
[+] nachteilig|13 years ago|reply
This may be a funny comment to find on HN, but even as a reasonbly technical person I really don't want to spend the time to find mods, research what my hypothetical Android phone is capable of running etc.

Especially because I depend on it to occasionally take a call and whatnot--I don't want to worry about whether some program or software update is going to screw it up. I worry enough about this stuff at work.

Nexus sort of solves this problem, but I hope that Google will do an even better job as Apple has now that they own Motorola.

[+] reaganing|13 years ago|reply
This provides that you're a) a nerd, b) comfortable voiding your warranty by rooting the phone and c) that your phone is even popular enough for there to be things like Cyanogenmod to install on it.

Sure, I did that with my HTC Incredible, but I shouldn't have had too and most people won't.

[+] Zigurd|13 years ago|reply
In May, Google announced the expansion of the Nexus branding to multiple OEM partners simultaneously.

LG has recently shown off a Nexus phone, and one can expect more such announcements.

Nexus now resembles Microsoft's "Signature" branding for craplet-free PCs. All reasonably recent Nexus devices get upgrades directly from Google, much like iOS devices.

Also, not all OEM extensions are evil. Samsung's mobile device management extensions can be very useful in some use cases. If only we could get such extensions a la carte.

[+] azharcs|13 years ago|reply
HTC did the same with their HTC Desire phones. I own a HTC Desire HD and I regret buying an Android phone as the only update I received was 2.3 with their Sense UI crap-ware. I've lost faith in Android ecosystem with early users being denied new features and security updates because they want users to upgrade to newer phones.
[+] jiggy2011|13 years ago|reply
I have exactly the same experience with my HTC.

I was actually very happy with it when I bought it, for the first few months. The battery life wasn't great but it was tolerable and the UI was simple and responsive.

A few months back I got an update, which I hoped would give me a new version of Android with some extra useful features. Instead all I got was a ton of bloat and crap which made everything harder to use, slower and the battery lasts about 1/2 what it used to. Naturally it doesn't let you turn this crap off.

[+] kmfrk|13 years ago|reply
If they advertised this in conjunction with their devices, I imagine consumers would be able to get their consumer protection agency involved because of false advertising.
[+] zunky|13 years ago|reply
"Soni admitted that the company wasn't quite there yet. But he believes the decision to cut off some upgrades would position the company to meet its future commitments." Bad business practice. Keep this up and you won't have any customers who would want to touch your "future" products. People are not that dumb. Some actually do research on a company's reputation before buying their products and others, well......they just don't forget when they were screwed over.
[+] prodigal_erik|13 years ago|reply
I can only assume he's talking about commitments to vendors or carriers, rather than customers who obviously need to discount anything they may say.
[+] michaelhoffman|13 years ago|reply
I'm surprised that Motorola isn't facing a class action lawsuit yet.
[+] wtracy|13 years ago|reply
Indeed, that would have a lot more teeth than FTC complaints and threats to boycott.
[+] adamc|13 years ago|reply
I hate to say it but that might be the right solution. They sold phones under false pretenses, so it would be reasonable to attempt restitution for that.
[+] csmatt|13 years ago|reply
There's really no reason for this to happen with so many excellent community roms. Open source is a give and take. Motorola and others could most likely keep their promises if they started with a community rom and focused on QA.

Also, Android needs a better method of updating the os that is more in line with how apple allows updates through iTunes.

[+] viseztrance|13 years ago|reply
The first company to ensure constant android updates for a decent amount of time (ex. 3 years) is sure to make a fortune even if they don't have the best phones.

You may argue that it will still take months to upgrade, but that should be OK given that you're pretty much guaranteed you'll get an upgrade (well, hypothetically speaking).

[+] Kylekramer|13 years ago|reply
I think the relative poor sales of Nexus devices proves that a fortune isn't really a guarantee if a company ensured updates. The amount of people who care about updates aren't enough to keep a business profitable.
[+] orangecat|13 years ago|reply
The first company to ensure constant android updates for a decent amount of time (ex. 3 years) is sure to make a fortune

Unfortunately, most users seem to not care. If they did, there would be way more Nexus devices sold.

[+] adamc|13 years ago|reply
Right now, the only sane expectation to have with most android phones is that the version of Android you buy it with is what you get (unless you are able/willing to install your own mod). That's definitely a downside compared to iOS, but most Android phones are a lot cheaper, which helps compensate for it.
[+] protolif|13 years ago|reply
"But Android is such an open platform! /QQ" Meanwhile, my iPad 2 just asked me if I wanted to upgrade to iOS6. It did it over wifi, and the whole thing took maybe half an hour.
[+] raldi|13 years ago|reply
Meanwhile, my iPad 1 will never get iOS 6, even though they were top-of-the-line just 14 months prior to its announcement.
[+] darkstalker|13 years ago|reply
But Android 2.3 is more functional than iOS6, even without rooting.
[+] drivebyacct2|13 years ago|reply
Which is a feature that came from Android. Next you're going to be telling me how cool you are because you can install and update apps over the WiFi.

Hey, how's that Facetime over 3G/4G? Hope you're not on AT&T.

[+] tomjen3|13 years ago|reply
Stuff like this is androids biggest issue. My HTC was supposed to get 2.3, but despite their promises they never did that.