Android users outraged over Motorola's broken promise
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EDIT: Android phone recommendations?
- 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.
I'm tired of this meme. It's grounded in truth as the best memes are, but otherwise mostly it's "much ado" by we technorati, doting on SF and NYC public transportation and using "Google" Maps like a paper map to see what's nearby (campus, neighborhood, etc), and thinking everyone's use case mirrors theirs. It's easy to join this chorus. It's harder to voice disagreement by pointing out the huge usability strides in Apple Maps vs the earlier app. You will be mocked. But...
In most of America, cell coverage is sporadic and slow. Try to pull up where you are on former maps app and you wait ages for tiles to come in. Zoom, wait ages again. Drive or hike in marginal coverage with Apple Maps and the difference is night and day -- Apple Maps seems almost like it is in offline mode. Stats and tests prove it uses a fraction of the data, and holds far more of your map in memory.
In most of America, getting from A to B needs a car. The "Google" Maps didn't do real time turn by turn, much less offer the spoken guidance, glancable visual guidance (and status bar guidance while in other apps) of Apple Maps.
In the rest of the world, the famous public transportation options of Google Maps weren't necessarily available. In Rome, for example, a public transportation search simply returns no public transportation found. Apple opened transit up to local providers, and now cities worldwide are already offering local-grown transit apps that hook in. In this country, professional guidance companies like Navigon have already hooked in with "urban guidance" that can blend car to get into city, walking to get from parking to public transportation, and transit to get around town, in a single route.
Blogs show screens of Apple's 3D view mapping satellite onto 3D models poorly. So it's not Google Earth. For everyman's workaday use, so what? Articles joke about addresses being in BFE instead of downtown. Google Maps does that too, more times than not, unless you're careful to give enough precision in the search terms, and even then it will prefer Queens or Brooklyn to Manhattan for similarly numbered streets in "New York, NY". You have to use "Manhattan" to get the street 2 blocks away.
There's a report issue button, and as users use Apple Maps, the glitches will improve. In the meantime, what's amazing is how much more usable the foundation and architecture of the app and server side data is compared to the old app. This is not a step down, it's a huge step forward that can be readily built upon, and the launch day quirks (that can be found in any mapping app when you know your own area within a data set that covers the planet) simply do not get in the way of the typical user's everyday use.
I'm a mapping hobbyist. Google Maps have gotten almost as good as hand made paper maps from the past, but still have a long way to go to get to the level of a Richard Saul Wurman. Apple Maps already have map usability techniques that offer clearer info with less clutter, and in the months of using the beta test app I rarely had complaints in the greater NYC area other than transit, which has now been even better solved by the whole new class of beautiful and usable third party transit apps. Yet technorati have scared regular users from upgrading for fear of "losing" their Google Maps. That's a huge disservice to the normals who count on us for guidance. (And of course they can add Google Maps back to their home screen. It only works online anyway, why aren't we telling people how to have both?)
Apple upgraded Maps to offer guidance to regular people in flyover country. Of course Apple should be held to task for insufficient debugging of place points, but even aside from the other fantastic features of iOS 6 (eg shared photostreams), friends and family just wanting to drive to work on the best route to avoid traffic should be encouraged upgrade today.
On your device you get iOS 6, but 3D turn by turn NAV is designed to run in parallel (multitasking) with other apps like Mail or Messages. Consider the performance gain of the iPhone 4S vs the iPhone 4 (nearly 2x, see below), and consider how users would react if the background turn by turn nav was causing their foreground apps to freeze.
A hallmark of the iPhone experience is fluidity. It's one of the painfully obvious differences to owners of both OSs (I own a Google Nexus as well). Framerate and responsiveness make the UI feel more tactile and real, connected to your touch and intentions. My speculation is that the processing power needed for the turn by turn could degrade the experience while in other apps, so it was nixed.
I do have an iPhone, but do not have an iPad to compare tablet to table.
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.
Clearly, all hardware manufacturers have an incentive to not give updates in order to compel people to buy their latest devices. It's just that Apple plays a slightly different game by giving updates, which make your device slower and slower with every upgrade until about 18-24 months later, you just fork out cash to buy their latest device.
At some point I imagine Verizon will simply stop supporting the phone, and the developer site will point to the last, 'carrier-blessed' OTA Android release.
If I can't trust a Nexus device on this platform, what can I trust?
I bought an AT&T Nexus S from Best Buy for $49 with a 2 year contract. It did not receive updates from Google even though it had a Google logo on the back and I had to update manually by downloading from the device image download link mentioned above. I have a Galaxy Nexus now that I bought thru Google, it updated to the latest point release as soon as I turned it on. As long as device gets purchased with a contract at a subsidized price, don't expect updates to get to you over the air.
At least in the USA that's often a sucker move. You pay full price for the phone, but still end up paying a higher monthly fee to cover the subsidized handset you didn't take.
A couple carriers do offer BYO handset pricing. But if you want to stick with a big carrier like Verizon then the phones Google sells directly are effectively coming at an extremely hefty premium.
I mean, Google releases updates to the Google Apps on Android for quite a substantial amount of time, so it's quite possible that unupdated Android devices are actually getting almost the same level of support as the 3GS. The only difference is that app developers have to bundle the [new APIs](http://developer.android.com/tools/extras/support-library.ht...) with their Android apps while Apple pushes the new API onto devices.
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.
There simply wasn't enough internal flash to hold the OS anymore without repartitioning it (something which carries a lot of risks). And the hardware just wasn't up to snuff.
I also owned the nexus one, but sad that it wouldn't go past gingerbread.
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.
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.
I wonder if there's a market for an email only device?
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
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.
Remember you (or me) are not their clients. The telcos we buy phones from are and they want more models they can push. Also, there are certification issues on different markets. For instance, it's illegal to use an iPhone 5 in Brazil because it wasn't approved by the regulatory agency.
One way Motorola can get around this would be to make the phones more modular, with models differing in peripheral components (keypads, LCDs, cameras), keeping the computing engine consistent and manage building images with component-specific flags.
One way Google could step in to help would be to make less updates to Android core and release more frequent updates of their userland apps (GMail, Maps, Plus etc). I get JB has better rendering performance on current hardware, but I can live without a performance enhancement for a phone I already have if, in return, I get something like Google Now.
And finally, telcos can somehow mitigate the problem by making the phone purchase experience better. If the experience of upgrading a phone were enjoyable, people would do it more often, keep themselves locked in their contracts and just be happy about it.
Why does it take so much work?
There are some differences here:
PC components are usually long lived and we expect them to last a couple major system upgrades. This expectation is relatively new with embedded electronics, where the norm has been not to update software at all (think about updating your washing machine firmware). Therefore, the idea of revising a device driver for a component that's already shipping is somewhat alien for a hardware maker - all their resources are devoted to the next generation and few, if any, software improvements trickle back to the previous-gen components.
Another factor is driver quality. A lot of the device driver code I saw is full with embarrassing hacks needed to cope with hardware problems and looks a lot like development ended as soon as it worked, without much regard to future maintanability, or even commenting the hacks. Looks a lot like design engineers preferring green wires to correct PCB mistakes while repair engineers favoring the use of yellow ones.
I fear that. Before the IBM PC clones the personal computer market was fragmented, but evolution was very fast. In the mid-80's, we had computers and capabilities x86 PCs would only gain in the mid-90's (for instance, plug-and-play expansion slots were present in the Apple II). Amigas had preemptive multitasking and Ataris pushed the price of 32 bit computing to impressive lows. Acorn introduced a RISC-based PC whose processor now powers just about everything that needs to process information around you.
Today, most personal computers are descendants of the IBM PC and employ an extended version of its horrid instruction set (the x86 was Intel's plan-B at the time - i432 was plan-A) running a matrioska of computers with something similar to an IBM 5150 at the core. The three major OSs in use on PCs are derived from 60's technologies, two from Unix, one from VMS. We deserve more.
Before the x86 dominance, you'd have Motorola in this group, making 68K chips (or, maybe, 88K). Processors today would probably be as fast as they are, maybe faster because they wouldn't need to be compatible with binaries written 30 years ago.
Imagine if we had a couple of competing systems like IBM PC, Atari, Commodore and Mac, each with 20-40% market share, each with their own chipsets. Do you think we would have 30 GFLOP single threaded / 700 GFLOP multithreaded performance built in commodity systems now? I don't think so.
In mobile space it's kinda similar: Only because ARM was able to get such a dominant position in chip design we have the current speedup rate.
The thing is however, that the main chipset is not the whole story, it seems to me that the way those dozens of subsystems work together nowadays just isn't designed well - as you said it just barely works. Having a standard would help in that every subsystem manufacturer could just provide drivers for his part and the OS would then know what to do with it, it's not necessary anymore for the assembler to do all that work.
Symmetry does break when we consider that you don't purchase your PC after consulting and getting permission from your internet provider. Imagine that ..
Now the funny thing - insert haha here -- is that the trend seems to be for getting herded onto small, mobile, and ultimately task focused devices and ubiquitous computing.
This topic really has significant social bearing far outside its current utilitarian scope.
Now lets meet the happy tuple: (Utilitarian, Totalitarian)
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?
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.
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?
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.
Uh, The Galaxy Nexus, SGSIII?
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.
Sure, I did that with my HTC Incredible, but I shouldn't have had too and most people won't.
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.
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.
Also, Android needs a better method of updating the os that is more in line with how apple allows updates through iTunes.
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).
Unfortunately, most users seem to not care. If they did, there would be way more Nexus devices sold.
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPad Jobs unveiled the iPad 2 at a March 2, 2011
Hey, how's that Facetime over 3G/4G? Hope you're not on AT&T.
https://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=334420639902596
So - apart from buying a Nexus device (or maybe a Samsung?), it's the same bullshit w/ every manufacturer, I guess.
Hardly ideal, I know. Not sure about the other models.