Annoyed with my Droid.....

[1stdroid]

I picked up my droid at 7:30 AM EST on 11-6-09. I'm quite sure I was the first in SW Michigan to get the phone. After some trouble early on, and a couple of phone exchanges, things have stabilized, sort of.

Aside from the other features that simply do not function as advertised, yesterday, I was trying to work in the yard and listen to music. The player pauses at random after maybe 1/2 a song to 1-1/2 songs. I killed all apps via Advanced App Killer and then cycled the power. Same crap.

I thought just maybe the headphone jack connection was intermittent and causing the pause similar to my ipod. Nope. While listening, I deliberately wiggled the jack around to try and make it pause and cannot.

I don't know how many others feel this way but, this phone is just not ready for prime time. I'm a VP of R&D. We develop electronic devices, etc. This phone smacks of a design that was released too early. It needed more time in the hardware/firmware debug stage.

Anybody know how to make the music player work?

 

[warrior21]

I know my phone is definitely ready for prime time so I would say it's just your phone. Maybe you can list some of the other problems or features you are having trouble with so we can help you out with them. As for the advanced task killer, it tends to cause more problems than it solves and there really isn't a need to have one on the phone so you should reconsider having it.

 

[hookbill]

I picked up my droid at 7:30 AM EST on 11-6-09. I'm quite sure I was the first in SW Michigan to get the phone. After some trouble early on, and a couple of phone exchanges, things have stabilized, sort of.

Aside from the other features that simply do not function as advertised, yesterday, I was trying to work in the yard and listen to music. The player pauses at random after maybe 1/2 a song to 1-1/2 songs. I killed all apps via Advanced App Killer and then cycled the power. Same crap.

I thought just maybe the headphone jack connection was intermittent and causing the pause similar to my ipod. Nope. While listening, I deliberately wiggled the jack around to try and make it pause and cannot.

I don't know how many others feel this way but, this phone is just not ready for prime time. I'm a VP of R&D. We develop electronic devices, etc. This phone smacks of a design that was released too early. It needed more time in the hardware/firmware debug stage.

Anybody know how to make the music player work?

I really think you need to do a bit more reading in this forum for saying the phone is not ready for prime time. Have you tried other smart phones to compare it with? I'm willing to bet you haven't because if you did you'd realize that it's the best smart phone out there.

I have a theory that anybody who purchases a Droid should own a Blackberry Storm first. After you own one of those, you really appreciate how good the Droid is.

Doesn't make it perfect it's a known problem about the music issue. I've seen lots of people talk about it, I'm sorry I don't know of a fix but search around a bit and see if you can't find one.

 

[toddegreene]

I got my Droid the same time you got yours, and had the same music player problem. The native music app is definitely lacking. Try TuneWiki or 3Cube (I got this with a ROM and am not sure where it's available). Once I switched to a third party app, the problem went away. Other than the native apps being rather basic (most have been replaced by third party apps), my Droid has been all that I expected.

 

[Cornholieo]

For best experience Root your phone

Not sure what you want it to do, but for myself, I have been totally happy with my purchase. I purchased the Moto Droid on release day and cut my contract short with AT&T (iPhone 3G) and even before rooting the phone have never looked back and wondered why I did it.

It took me a while to take the plunge into rooting my phone, because I was scared I would brick my phone and piss my wife off. I didn't and since then the phone became more amazing than it already was. It even makes my wife who has a iPhone 3GS look at it with envy.

Even if you choose not to root your phone do this... Get a Google Voice account (you will find people on this forum giving them out about once a week), put Google Voice on your phone and use the Google Voice number as your primary number. Get rid of Text Messaging with Verizon and do all your texting through the Google Voice application. This gives you free texting and even if you never become happy with your purchase, you will at least be happy with the money your save. dancedroid

 

[cplus]

It happened to me.

My Pandora and music player used to do exactly that but ONLY on Jrummy's remix which I have never tried again because I like my phone to work right.

Oh, and my phone is PRIME TIME READY thanks to P's BB. But I still liked the phone when it was stock until I learned it could be so much better...

 

[takeshi]

I don't know how many others feel this way but, this phone is just not ready for prime time.

I don't but I don't have the problem that you're experiencing (and I don't use app/task killers, FWIW). It's interesting that you assume your experiences with the Droid are conclusively indicative of how the other million+ Droids operate as well...

Every device I've worked with can have problems. Every manufacturer makes lemons.

Have you looked into other music apps to see if they exhibit the same behavior?

 

[Explosivpotato]

Some of the stock apps are a little lacking, yes, but there are plenty of replacement options, both free and paid, in the market. Don't like how the music player works? Get a new one. Just like a regular computer. Don't like how windows media player works? (who does?) Download another music player and use that.

My droid is ridiculously fast and stable now on Bugless Beast 1.0, running at a solid 1.2 GHz. My keyboard has worn in and bubbled nicely, and I couldn't be happier. I think that android requires you to not be afraid to mess with it to get the best user experience. Wether that be rooting or just downloading another music player, you gotta customize it to get the full experience.

Sent from my Droid using Tapatalk

 

[1stdroid]

Thanks to all that offered constructive advice. To those of you that just want to talk about how great a device is relative to another, I just don't see that. To say a jammed finger feels good when compared to a broken leg is just goofy. Sorry.

I'm simply saying that with reasonable expectations out of the gate, I didn't give up on the phone even after 2 had to go back. 1st problem was the 1st day. The speaker in the handset was defective and sound quality was barely functional. The next phone went back after a couple of weeks after much reading about how to resolve the random power down issue. I truly believe that is hardware infancy problem. Again, I didn't give up. I bought my son the same phone the same morning. He has not had those issues but, has had a couple of others.

We have read much on this forum and others trying to get things right. I have sacrificed frequently used features such as voice dialing. It doesn't even pass the laugh test on this device. If you say, "call Jason" the phone either doesn't recognize it or thinks I said Denise. Now, I speak very clearly and also understand the nuances of voice operated devices. I have others, including my vehicle. My previous motorola phone worked almost flawlessly in this regard.

So, while I wasn't trying to offend anyone with my opinion, I think those of you making assumptions about what I have or haven't read, tried, or whatever, should consider trying to keep an open mind. To you, buying a device with advertised features that simply do not work may be OK and you may actually enjoy researching and rooting and resolving these issues but, there are those of us who expect the resident apps to actually work. Then, if we we want enhancement, the research, etc., is fine and expected.

There are features of my droid, and from what I read, many others, that simply do not work or, do not work well. I have lost all the pictures on the phone. I have had every text message simultaneously erased. And, if I thought about it, there are more. These are not unique problems to me or my phone. At least, not according to other forum members.

So, I'll close again with a thanks to those confirming this is another known problem and that potentially, a third party app will help. I really like this aspect of the phone and have used the stock music player since the first week I owned it. Only last night while trimming shrubs did it start to just randomly pause. I tried everything short of yanking the battery to try and reset it.

As I said, and this is only my opinion, the phone is simply not ready to perform reliably in the initial relase hardware and latest Verizon firmware.

Believe me, I wish it was. I want these features to work.

 

[itzkr0me]

Are you on 2.1? Wasn't a new player released with 2.1? Sorry to hear about these issues, my incredible (and my droid before it) are/were flawless with regards to music playback.

 

[ptfd13]

I also got my Droid on the morning of release date and have been nothing but happy with it. Everything they advertised worked flawlessly for me. I even had it navigate me back home from getting it just to try it out. It has surpassed all expectations it advertised of that i could give it. My guess would be that you have just had very bad luck with getting bad hardware/software with your droids. This may not be the case but for so many to be working great and a relatively small number experiencing problems I would have to guess it is just your phones. Also, i have never rooted or used anything other then market apps.

 

[1stdroid]

Are you on 2.1? Wasn't a new player released with 2.1? Sorry to hear about these issues, my incredible (and my droid before it) are/were flawless with regards to music playback.

Yes, 2.1. I think so on the new music player. Actually, I didn't have the pause problem until the other day. Previously, I too had been happy with the music player, as basic as it is. All I really care about is having music at airports, while mowing the lawn, etc. I can always go back to my ipod but, clearly, the phone is more convenient.

I looked around for a music app last night within the market on the phone. I didn't see anything but, only spent a few minutes.

Today, I'm going to yank the battery and SD card, let the phone sit a bit, and put it back together. It could just be a glitch that occurs when reading the memory.

To be clear, I love the idea of the phone and really can't compare it to 20 other smartphones in terms of personal experience. I'm just saying Verizon's flagship phone should be able to play music, be voice dialed, etc., etc., without restructuring the OS.

I want to use the phone not engineer ways to make it work reliably.

 

[paintballer9876]

Are you on 2.1? Wasn't a new player released with 2.1? Sorry to hear about these issues, my incredible (and my droid before it) are/were flawless with regards to music playback.

Yes, 2.1. I think so on the new music player. Actually, I didn't have the pause problem until the other day. Previously, I too had been happy with the music player, as basic as it is. All I really care about is having music at airports, while mowing the lawn, etc. I can always go back to my ipod but, clearly, the phone is more convenient.

I looked around for a music app last night within the market on the phone. I didn't see anything but, only spent a few minutes.

Today, I'm going to yank the battery and SD card, let the phone sit a bit, and put it back together. It could just be a glitch that occurs when reading the memory.

To be clear, I love the idea of the phone and really can't compare it to 20 other smartphones in terms of personal experience. I'm just saying Verizon's flagship phone should be able to play music, be voice dialed, etc., etc., without restructuring the OS.

I want to use the phone not engineer ways to make it work reliably.

Try searching for filipe on the market or on the stock virtual keyboard hold down 3 until a menu shows up and select the exponent form. The player that will come up is very good in my experience, and might be able to solve your problem.

 

[1stdroid]

[/QUOTE]Try searching for filipe on the market or on the stock virtual keyboard hold down 3 until a menu shows up and select the exponent form. The player that will come up is very good in my experience, and might be able to solve your problem.[/QUOTE]

Found it and thanks. After the hard reset (pulling battery and SD card) if the problem persists, I'll try this player.

Thanks a lot.

 

[jbsangel]

So while I agree with you about wanting the stock features to just work right, I have to question how you can make the monumental jump from your experience meaning that the phone itself isn't ready for prime time. That is kind of just as absurd as the people making assumptions about your usage and swearing by the phone's good graces.

I use the stock music player for about 1-2 hours daily, some days more and I haven't experienced your problem but I have read a few other threads for people with issues. Pretty much every device known to man has some issue for some subset of people. It sucks when you are one of the ones in that subset, but that doesn't mean the device is a global failure, even though to those people it just seems awful.

I respect constructive and logical criticism. I think Android is still pretty young and could spice up its offerings. There are quite a few features that I miss from my win mo and blackberry phones that just seem like "duh" features to have, that android is missing. Those kinds of features are what would make me say a phone isn't ready for primetime. Bugs that only affect a small number of people, as much as they suck, are not.

Two players I've seen come up a lot are the Meridian music player and 3 (i think that is what its called). Hope your reboot helps, but if not, good luck with a market app.