Motorola Officially Confirms No More Webtop and Laptop Accessories

dgstorm

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It's now officially confirmed from Motorola. They will be killing their Webtop and laptop accessories programs. For those unfamiliar with Webtop, it was software that allows a Motorola smartphone to dock with a laptop accessory. It would then give you some computer functionality. Even though it got rave critical reviews because of the concept of it, when it was first released it was a bit buggy and slow. Additionally, AT&T and Motorola priced the phone and laptop dock at $500, which turned off most potential buyers. In the end it may have been a concept that was simply too far ahead of its time, and was poorly executed.

The Webtop product was one of Sanjay Jha's (Moto's former CEO) favorite projects, but their new CEO, Dennis Woodside decided to focus on a few core ideas like improved battery efficiency, faster Android updates, and LTE. Here's Moto's official statement,

Motorola's Webtop app helps users extend their smartphone experience to larger screens. While consumers around the world have adopted Webtop and the concept spurred a lot of innovation in the industry, the adoption has not been strong enough to justify continued resources being allocated to developing Webtop on future devices. We have also seen development of the Android operating system focus on the inclusion of more desktoplike features. Beginning with Photon Q and Droid Razr M/Droid Razr HD/Droid Razr Maxx HD, we will no longer be including Webtop on our products moving forward.

How many of you guys will be sad to see it go?

Source: CNET
 

johnomaz

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I think its a great product but the price is just way too much. Also, the apps for phones aren't so full featured that the laptop experience is minimal. I'm sad to see it go as it i can be useful in some situations, but with how popular and powerful tablets have become, the webtop items are no longer needed. Tablets have cases with built in bluetooth keyboards and you can get them for less than just the webtop kit.
 

LoneWolfArcher

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I think its a great product but the price is just way too much. Also, the apps for phones aren't so full featured that the laptop experience is minimal. I'm sad to see it go as it i can be useful in some situations, but with how popular and powerful tablets have become, the webtop items are no longer needed. Tablets have cases with built in bluetooth keyboards and you can get them for less than just the webtop kit.

I have both the 10" and 14" Lapdocks. I also enjoy plugging my phone via HDMI into TVs and using Webtop. If this functionality is not available in the future, I will switch to Samsung for my Android needs.
 

swc2001

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:mad: I think this is horrible. I believe that this was one of the items that really put Motorola a step ahead of its competition.
Webtop is not just for the docks...you can use it on a smart TV as well.
They really didnt advertise that the phones could do this enough either. I would bet you that 90% of Razr Owners dont even know that their phone can do Webtop. This is somthing that should have been shouted from the rooftops not bottled up on the forums and specific Verizon locations.
They should at least offer the webtop on the phone... just let other manufactures come up with the Accesories.

If the next phones dont at very least have the Micro HDMI out.... I will be VERY UPSET!! That feature brings phones to the next level.
It really needs to be advertised more as well!
 

NeoPhoenixTE

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I think the "ahead of it's time" point of view is an accurate one. Great idea, but just too cost-prohibitive right now.

Personally, if I want to do stuff on my phone on a bigger screen, I'll hook up the HDMI cable and stream stuff if that's what I wanna do. Other than that, the Qwerty keyboard on my D4 is enough of a keyboard for me, and I can just do epic surfing on my HDTV if I wanted to. Thing is, I've a computer at home and at work at that point. :p
 

MissionImprobable

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As little as they did to inform customers of its features, I'd say devices like the Asus Padphone will dominate this market. Moto needs to focus on streamlining what they have anyway, because part of their issues now stem from putting out far too much product at one time.
 

jtpowell

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I think the "ahead of it's time" point of view is an accurate one. Great idea, but just too cost-prohibitive right now.

Personally, if I want to do stuff on my phone on a bigger screen, I'll hook up the HDMI cable and stream stuff if that's what I wanna do. Other than that, the Qwerty keyboard on my D4 is enough of a keyboard for me, and I can just do epic surfing on my HDTV if I wanted to. Thing is, I've a computer at home and at work at that point. :p

It is not cost prohibitive from a manufacturing standpoint. They were greedy and chose a bad price point is closer to the truth. Also the first implementation vs how it is on ICS didn't help sell it. If you compare the first webtop to now you could easily say 1/2 baked. At least if they keep hdmi I'll hang around. If they lose hdmi ouput then cya.
 

jseah

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It is not cost prohibitive from a manufacturing standpoint. They were greedy and chose a bad price point is closer to the truth.

FWIW, you can find them on the "daily deal" sites selling for $50 (for the Atrix) and $60 (for the Bionic).
 

liftedplane

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yeah I didn't use webtop much but having HDMI out what a complete win... I would hook my bionic up to my TV to watch movies all the time... it worked well and was smaller and quicker then plugging in my laptop.

I think things like the asus padfone are absolutely wonderful and will definitely take over eventually... motorola is definitely making a bad choice this time around
 

Domestic violence

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I bought lapdock 100 for $49 and sold it for $80. I went back and bought another to keep for myself (the last one around) I used it maybe, 4 times so I packed it back up and haven't decided if I should keep it or sell it.

I use my Kindle Fire for anything off of my phone and with wifi at work and foxfi working fine, I dont have much of a need for the lapdock.
 

TatDroid

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I got the dock for my Bionic 3 or 4 months ago when they were $50. For me the biggest problem was that there was no way to scroll - unless you hooked up an external mouse (which is a hassle if you're using the dock so you can travel light). Such a simple thing - enable scroll on the track pad - but it was a deal breaker for me. I kept wanting to touch the screen to scroll.

Oh well, I have an Asus Transformer, so the lapdock was just an inexpensive experiment (a failed one, for me). My dock hasn't seen the light of day for months now.
 

mykl376

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TatDroid said:
I got the dock for my Bionic 3 or 4 months ago when they were $50. For me the biggest problem was that there was no way to scroll - unless you hooked up an external mouse (which is a hassle if you're using the dock so you can travel light). Such a simple thing - enable scroll on the track pad - but it was a deal breaker for me. I kept wanting to touch the screen to scroll.

Oh well, I have an Asus Transformer, so the lapdock was just an inexpensive experiment (a failed one, for me). My dock hasn't seen the light of day for months now.

You can use the up/down arrows on the keyboard to scroll. I know it's not optimal, but it does get the job done, a little bit slower. I still catch myself trying to scroll with the side of the touchpad like I do on my actual laptop, so I do feel your frustration!
 

LoneWolfArcher

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I got the dock for my Bionic 3 or 4 months ago when they were $50. For me the biggest problem was that there was no way to scroll - unless you hooked up an external mouse (which is a hassle if you're using the dock so you can travel light). Such a simple thing - enable scroll on the track pad - but it was a deal breaker for me. I kept wanting to touch the screen to scroll.

Oh well, I have an Asus Transformer, so the lapdock was just an inexpensive experiment (a failed one, for me). My dock hasn't seen the light of day for months now.

To scroll hold down the left pad button and swipe in the direction you want to scroll.
 

npro1464

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As little as they did to inform customers of its features, I'd say devices like the Asus Padphone will dominate this market. Moto needs to focus on streamlining what they have anyway, because part of their issues now stem from putting out far too much product at one time.

Yeah they say theyre going to work on this, yet theyre putting out a Razr M, a Razr HD, a Razr HD MAXX. Oh wait, did you hear they might be working on a Razr Nexus? Moto is their own biggest competitor.
 

marleyinoc

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Yeah they say theyre going to work on this, yet theyre putting out a Razr M, a Razr HD, a Razr HD MAXX. Oh wait, did you hear they might be working on a Razr Nexus? Moto is their own biggest competitor.

To be fair, those were probably already in the pipelines. I don't know how long it takes r & d wise, so I can't say that for sure, but I'd suspect it made more sense to follow through with these.

-Bionic 6.7.247 via HoB
 
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