Motorola Now 'Cautious' about Partnership with Verizon because of iPhone

[huskur]

@beardface I have the droid 2 and initially I love it and liked a lot of features it had including blur. Then I notice my phone lagging more than usual. When I tried a rom with out blur I realized how heave blur was.

Beardface my point is that motorola's blur, preloaded apps, and locked bootloader is combining to bite them in the end. I started a thread on the motorola forum about blur. Do you realize the top 2 reasons people, normal people who can care less about rooting, people rooted their device was to remove preloaded apps and speed their phone up. Blur is running so many services and apps in the background that it literally slowing some people's phones done. I am running a blurless rom and it runs so much smoother and faster tha with blur.
What I am saying is if blur was smoother and you did not have as many preloaded apps I dont think we would have as many people caring about rootng the d2/x. So essentially blur and preloaded apps, which was designed to bring in customers, are causing people to learn about rooting and allowing people to see complaints about blur. Those people put 2 and 2 together and think "yeah I been having the same problem".
And Drodul said it best, if all you worried about are the 1% who root then why lock the bootloader in the first place. Such a knee jerk reaction over 1% is a waste of time and money. Obviously its bigger than that if they felt they needed to do it and then explain their actions.

As you touched on, we are <5% of the android community. Why would moto care about a locked bootloader. The general public of android users open the box, charge the phone, and think that its "the best thing since sliced cheese" and never change a thing. Moto's thinking? i don't get it.....then again....they don't care.

I buy Moto for the build. Gorilla glass is awesome. Wished all manufacturers would use it. I could make easier choices then. Moto just makes a QUALITY device

 

[pc747]

@beardface I have the droid 2 and initially I love it and liked a lot of features it had including blur. Then I notice my phone lagging more than usual. When I tried a rom with out blur I realized how heave blur was.

Beardface my point is that motorola's blur, preloaded apps, and locked bootloader is combining to bite them in the end. I started a thread on the motorola forum about blur. Do you realize the top 2 reasons people, normal people who can care less about rooting, people rooted their device was to remove preloaded apps and speed their phone up. Blur is running so many services and apps in the background that it literally slowing some people's phones done. I am running a blurless rom and it runs so much smoother and faster tha with blur.
What I am saying is if blur was smoother and you did not have as many preloaded apps I dont think we would have as many people caring about rootng the d2/x. So essentially blur and preloaded apps, which was designed to bring in customers, are causing people to learn about rooting and allowing people to see complaints about blur. Those people put 2 and 2 together and think "yeah I been having the same problem".
And Drodul said it best, if all you worried about are the 1% who root then why lock the bootloader in the first place. Such a knee jerk reaction over 1% is a waste of time and money. Obviously its bigger than that if they felt they needed to do it and then explain their actions.

As you touched on, we are <5% of the android community. Why would moto care about a locked bootloader. The general public of android users open the box, charge the phone, and think that its "the best thing since sliced cheese" and never change a thing. Moto's thinking? i don't get it.....then again....they don't care.

I buy Moto for the build. Gorilla glass is awesome. Wished all manufacturers would use it. I could make easier choices then. Moto just makes a QUALITY device

Yes they do. Hardware wise I have no complaints about the d2. The D1 was plagued with minor issues (ie headphone jack, keyboard) but the d2 fixed all that and it is a nice piece of hardware. The droid x got better reviews than the evo because of the battery life and the screen resolution. Now imagine if the droid x had a more polished ui (ie if blur was a lot lighter in the system folder) I dont think another manufacturer would come close. And that is my point if I am in the drivers seat I am crushing all competition. See I am big about if my team have the lead in sports that they keep driving the ball and they go for the kill...put it in the endzone again, dont give the other team life by not finishing and settling for a field goal.
That is the same thing I would do if I ran motorola, if 1% are crying about a minor feature I shut them up by allowing them to buy a key or an unlocked device. See Walmart have that practice to shut the complaint up so it dont effect other potential customers. Yes people are going to find things to complain about but if its a feature that is causing an uproar in my fan base I will look into it and find the cheapest solution to resolving it.
Because if the Bionic allowed you the ability to unlock the bootloader and blur was better who here would even consider the TB.

 

[moosez3]

Yes they do. Hardware wise I have no complaints about the d2. The D1 was plagued with minor issues (ie headphone jack, keyboard) but the d2 fixed all that and it is a nice piece of hardware. The droid x got better reviews than the evo because of the battery life and the screen resolution. Now imagine if the droid x had a more polished ui (ie if blur was a lot lighter in the system folder) I dont think another manufacturer would come close. And that is my point if I am in the drivers seat I am crushing all competition. See I am big about if my team have the lead in sports that they keep driving the ball and they go for the kill...put it in the endzone again, dont give the other team life by not finishing and settling for a field goal.
That is the same thing I would do if I ran motorola, if 1% are crying about a minor feature I shut them up by allowing them to buy a key or an unlocked device. See Walmart have that practice to shut the complaint up so it dont effect other potential customers. Yes people are going to find things to complain about but if its a feature that is causing an uproar in my fan base I will look into it and find the cheapest solution to resolving it.
Because if the Bionic allowed you the ability to unlock the bootloader and blur was better who here would even consider the TB.

True, I sure as heck wouldnt buy a TB if the Bionic was unlocked... I feel like there still may be time to keep it unlocked before its released... maybe if we keep saying the will listen??? I would seriously wait till July if I knew it would be unlocked.

COME ON MOTO!

 

[stinger161]

I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around how the iphone on Verizon is impacting Moto sales. I for one came to Vzn from nextel/sprint due to horrid reception, lack of a really great phone, and bad customer service. I was interested in the iphone but had no desire to go to AT&T's crappy service and after looking at the iphone specs or lack thereof of no video, integrated battery, no customization, can't expand storage, can't even do fundamentals like copy and paste, etc I went with the BB Storm. Which was alright but I got tired of a really slow browser and constant battery pulls to reboot. As soon as i could I upgraded to the Droid X and couldn't be happier! So what that apple finally realized what their phone was lacking but did they care? People were willing to give up a kidney for one! And it seems they still are.

When I upgrade again it will probably be the Bionic or the Atrix when it comes. I don't think I'll even look at an iphone5.

Back to my original statement: Are people just so wrapped up in "I need to have an iphone, I need to have an iphone" that they overlook the outdated technology compared to what the Motos and HTC phones have? For the love of Billy Mays the iphone can't and probably never will run flash video! That was another annoying thing with the Storm. A good majority of sites you go to would end up with "flash required to play video".

Yeah, Apple had a great concept with their touch screen multi-function device but Moto and others have taken it and blown it away. I don't know what they will do technology wise with future phones. Unless it involves a teleporter or the ability to open up multiple interdimensional wormholes, or a particle ray beam I think they are still going to be way behind the curve.

 

[SnydersWeb]

Tossing my $.02 into the ring since I've been with Verizon since ~1998 and carried Moto phones exclusively:
StarTac 7600
StarTac 7868
T720 (P.O.S)
V710
KRZR (bleh)
RAZR2
Droid 1

Moto's pattern is that they come out with great products, then sit on their heels and re-hash the same old crap over and over again. Often putting out some phones that are buggy as all hell (KRZR was the worst at start).

Moto shouldn't need to worry about Apple, LG, Nokia(soft), and HTC if they remember one fundamental thing: STAY HUNGRY. Give me a reason to choose Moto outside of the circle M.

The other part is to also stand ground against Verizon. Every time Verizon foists its up-your-arseware (preloaded apps, obnoxious UI elements, etc), it hurts the customer experience. Let the customer choose. On that note, yeah, I can't say I'm a fan of Blur since you can't turn it off. It simply limits what *I* do with *MY* phone.

Apple's big thing is to completely control the battlefield as much as they can on their phone. Since that's antithetical to Android phones they'd best embrace the open nature and if they're interested in providing value added extras, leave them as (un)installable options. Focus on the fact Android is about letting us do whatever the hell we please with our phones.

Delaying the Bionic was annoying. I'm waiting on it, eagerly, and plan to get it. The fact the Atrix hit AT&T first and with such a gap between it and the Bionic is a disappointment but would not consider it a slap in the face.

Anyway, stay hungry, stay innovative, stay paranoid, stay sexy, stay open - your competition is always closer than you think Moto!

 

[UNC]

lol...its funny reading some of the comments here..sales are declining cuz of the locked bootloaders....

Did the bootloader have any bearing on Eris sales, Nexus 1 sales? What about Incredible sales, Fascinate sales? Since ppl like to use forums as indicators how about this:

The Droid X section is bigger than the Fascinate and Incredible section combined. Look at the Droid 2 section vs. the Fascinate and Incredible. And I remember reading the Droid 2 didnt sell as well as the Droid X...

But locked bootloaders are the reason for declining sales...right. It sure didnt hurt initial sales, and it doesnt seem to be helping sales of other phones with unlocked bootloaders.

Motorola just dont have any new Android phones on Verizon now, thats all. Maybe with Verizon getting the iPhone Verizon wasnt so pressed to get the Atrix.

I see it as less of an FU to Verizon whose main goal is to gain as many customers as possible and more of a lack in Moto's confidence in it's own product to compete with the CDMA rehash of the iPhone 4. Considering they believe Motoblur, locked bootloaders and crippled overpriced tablets are all good ideas I'm going to have to agree.

Now that I would see as more logical too. But, the Atrix is on AT&T so I dont think its that so much. Remember, we dont know if the iPhone 5 will come to Verizon. AT&T might still have exclusive rights in some way. If the iPhone 5 will go to AT&T first Motorola still has to deal with the iPhone 5.

Yea it will be June for the iPhone 5, the Atrix will be about 4 months old. Maybe Moto just doesnt wanna go head to head with the iPhone release. Its smart. Dont let its release overshadow your own product. Look at how some of us have theories about the Thunderbolt release getting pushed back.

Or maybe Motorola sees something we dont, like Verizon catering to the iPhone more than any other phone on Verizon in meetings? Actually...some of us do see it that way with recent events...

+1,000,000

Everyone here assumes that the average consumer is like them...

Noone cares about bootloaders!!! And even if they did, why wouldn't HTC's "self-sbf" on the G2 dissuade those same people from going ot HTC???


iPhone already has NO bloat and is going to end up being the LEAST locked down phone!!!! Bwahahaha stupid android sheep.

 

[UNC]

No edit...

I guess Philip K Dick was right.... Android (sic) dream of electric sheep....

Remember his estate sued Google? Oh the symmetry!

 

[kodiak799]

I think it's simply that, here we are still waiting on the first LTE device while AT&T just got the first dual-core smartphone (in the US, at least). So it looks to me like nothing more than a dual-core LTE device needing a little more time in the oven than the Atrix or TBolt.

And like I said, AT&T has an almost complete lack of high-end Android devices. Even if you take the VZW IPhone out of the picture, you've got the TBolt and phones from LG and Samsung coming to compete with on VZW. Just a very basic and common sense business decision.

LG and Sony weren't big players in 2010 but are coming out with a number of good phones this year, some of which will find their way to VZW. OF COURSE Moto had to do something to diversify it's business risk/customer base. It's not just the IPhone, there are at least 4-5 other high-end phones coming to VZW this year (contrast that with 1 - the DInc last year, maybe 2 if you count the Fascinate?)

 

[dfuser312553]

LG and Sony weren't big players in 2010

Or the last 5

 

[Martin030908]

lol...its funny reading some of the comments here..sales are declining cuz of the locked bootloaders....

Did the bootloader have any bearing on Eris sales, Nexus 1 sales? What about Incredible sales, Fascinate sales? Since ppl like to use forums as indicators how about this:

The Droid X section is bigger than the Fascinate and Incredible section combined. Look at the Droid 2 section vs. the Fascinate and Incredible. And I remember reading the Droid 2 didnt sell as well as the Droid X...

But locked bootloaders are the reason for declining sales...right. It sure didnt hurt initial sales, and it doesnt seem to be helping sales of other phones with unlocked bootloaders.

Motorola just dont have any new Android phones on Verizon now, thats all. Maybe with Verizon getting the iPhone Verizon wasnt so pressed to get the Atrix.

I see it as less of an FU to Verizon whose main goal is to gain as many customers as possible and more of a lack in Moto's confidence in it's own product to compete with the CDMA rehash of the iPhone 4. Considering they believe Motoblur, locked bootloaders and crippled overpriced tablets are all good ideas I'm going to have to agree.

Now that I would see as more logical too. But, the Atrix is on AT&T so I dont think its that so much. Remember, we dont know if the iPhone 5 will come to Verizon. AT&T might still have exclusive rights in some way. If the iPhone 5 will go to AT&T first Motorola still has to deal with the iPhone 5.

Yea it will be June for the iPhone 5, the Atrix will be about 4 months old. Maybe Moto just doesnt wanna go head to head with the iPhone release. Its smart. Dont let its release overshadow your own product. Look at how some of us have theories about the Thunderbolt release getting pushed back.

Or maybe Motorola sees something we dont, like Verizon catering to the iPhone more than any other phone on Verizon in meetings? Actually...some of us do see it that way with recent events...

+1,000,000

Everyone here assumes that the average consumer is like them...

Noone cares about bootloaders!!! And even if they did, why wouldn't HTC's "self-sbf" on the G2 dissuade those same people from going ot HTC???


iPhone already has NO bloat and is going to end up being the LEAST locked down phone!!!! Bwahahaha stupid android sheep.

Don't confuse Moto locking down phones with all of Android.

 

[czerdrill]

+1,000,000

Everyone here assumes that the average consumer is like them...

Noone cares about bootloaders!!! And even if they did, why wouldn't HTC's "self-sbf" on the G2 dissuade those same people from going ot HTC???


iPhone already has NO bloat and is going to end up being the LEAST locked down phone!!!! Bwahahaha stupid android sheep.

Gotta agree with you (not in those words though haha). When you go to communities like droidforums it's natural to think that every android owner out there is like you and thinks "Dual core yeaaaahhh!!! Super AMOLED!!! Unlocked bootloaders for custom ROMSSSSS!!!! 1337!!!"...now the truth of the matter:

Like you said...no one cares about bootloaders, and processors, and displays and roms. The people who do are the ones who are on forums like these, and those numbers are negligible to the point that they're laughable. Let's look at the big picture, people. The overwhelming majority of people who buy phones (android or ios) have no clue what they were buying and were swayed by the cutsie (iphone) or epic lasers!! (android) marketing. It's just funny to me that people really believe that Motorola was saved from the brink of destruction by people who root and ROM their phone. Or that their next offering will be a flop because it has an unlocked bootloader. LOL. Those people are less than 1% of total smartphone users, and even a smaller percentage of Motorola users. As much as you want to pat yourselves on the back, you did not save Motorola...

 

[kodiak799]

LG and Sony weren't big players in 2010

Or the last 5

Maybe in the US...Globally the #3 and #6 cell phone manufacturers, both ahead of Moto and nearly double HTC.

If Android saved Moto, LG and Sony Erickson can certainly be major players now that they are full-on diving into the market.

 

[dfuser312553]

LG and Sony weren't big players in 2010

Or the last 5

Maybe in the US...Globally the #3 and #6 cell phone manufacturers, both ahead of Moto and nearly double HTC.

If Android saved Moto, LG and Sony Erickson can certainly be major players now that they are full-on diving into the market.

Yeah but who have been the #1? Nokia? I Lawlz @them. I guess I was referring to how good their top end stuff was.
I hope you're right & Sony does step up. LG is finally getting stuff out but Sony thinks they can just name phones after their other products & it'll be gravy.

 

[nmos]

Regular people may not care about bootloaders specifically however:

1. Lots of people can understand the difference between an open system that let's them do whatever they want, wheather it's installing an extended battery, replacing the default email app, or just removing some app that they just never use. It's not any one thing, it's an attitude.

2. Non-geeks buy smart phones based in part on all the cool stuff that they see us geeks doing on our phones. My wife isn't a geek but she can appreciate being able to stream music from our home server rather than having to sync her phone with some other computer using some oddball software that's always trying to sell her something. That's just so 90's! My customers think it's pretty neat that I can stream security cam footage of my office or fix their mis-behaving computer from anywhere.

Sent from my Droid using DroidForums App

 

[kodiak799]

Yeah but who have been the #1? Nokia? I Lawlz @them. I guess I was referring to how good their top end stuff was.
I hope you're right & Sony does step up. LG is finally getting stuff out but Sony thinks they can just name phones after their other products & it'll be gravy.

Yeah, well I understand why Nokia went with MS. Not saying it was a good decision, but I understand the reasoning.

The LTE LG phone coming to VZW certainly looks decent enough, it will compete with the TBolt, at least. Sony's offerings look pretty good, too, maybe not best of the best but they are going to take some market share. The two combined will certainly dent Moto's sales.

Point being, they've got considerable more competition on VZW, especially the IPhone but certainly not just the IPhone. Plus, I'm not sure what will really happen going forward with AT&T rolling out LTE and Sprint now talking about converting to LTE. That could be disastrous for Moto if they don't establish a strong presence on those carriers.