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I read that the new Motorola Droid X and Droid 2 will have digitally signed bootloaders. Which means that only approved Motorola ROMS can be flashed. I wonder how long it will be before HTC and everyone else starts doing this? This could put an end to all of our fun! Of course the cellular providers will save a lot of money if they don't have to replace all of those bricked phones. It will be interesting to see what happens to the bootloader in future OTA and Froyo updates for the DInc...
this belongs in general
Lexus One said:
This could put an end to all of our fun!
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It will always be a cat and mouse game. Rarely ever ends. We always find another way around.
We should as a community all patition the cell phone companys for a truely open handset.
acezhi said:
We should as a community all patition the cell phone companys for a truely open handset.
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Petitioning? What are you some kind of tree loving hippie? JK That **** never works though. Petitions, protesting, etc is for idiots who think it will accomplish something.
They are even stupider for locking these down. Sure people mess up phones trying to mod them. Now they are making ways for you to totally brick your phone. Don't they think more people will now make insurance claims even more if you try to mod your phone and mess it up.
Moved as not development.
reagianicparable said:
It will always be a cat and mouse game. Rarely ever ends. We always find another way around.
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Possibly. But it takes a hell of a lot longer when you're up against encryption. You usually only win this battle if someone on the inside leaks the key. And by then there are new phones coming out and this keeps getting lower and lower on the priority list. Personally, I don't think we can win the encryption battle...
its not a new thing its a motorola thing... htc likes to give its buyers what they like.. and since we all like it a little different I dont see them locking their bootloader anytime soon... they made the nexus one which is the only true open source phone so far but they messed up on the marketing of it... all 3 phones you mention are motorola and the only htc phone I see with any kind of restriction would be the HTC aria on ATT cause you can't install 3rd party apps but that is due to ATT not HTC restrictions
two_cents said:
its not a new thing its a motorola thing... htc likes to give its buyers what they like.. and since we all like it a little different I dont see them locking their bootloader anytime soon... they made the nexus one which is the only true open source phone so far but they messed up on the marketing of it... all 3 phones you mention are motorola and the only htc phone I see with any kind of restriction would be the HTC aria on ATT cause you can't install 3rd party apps but that is due to ATT not HTC restrictions
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Granted, HTC *may* never lock their bootloader, but what is to stop Verizon from demanding it? Verizon is permitting it in the Motorola. What if this turns out to be a profit maximizer for them? Could HTC next? Time will tell...
I don't see locking up phones as a way to "make money" if anything it will alienate your customer/developer base and no one will buy the phones with the locked bootloaders. Especially if HTC doesn't trend up and continues to be a nice company. Motorola has already LOST A LOT of preorders on there Droid X because of the encrypted bootloader. Doesn't matter...they can't seem to keep them in stock anyway. Good riddens to a WAY to large handset with a crappy UI overlay.
What it boils down to is PROFIT. Verizon will weigh the revenues and decide with their pocketbooks. It doesn't make any difference whether HTC likes it or not. Verizon calls the shots. If HTC says no, they're gone. Samsung or LG or someone else will pick up the slack. As for losing customers, it doesn't matter. Money is what matters. Just ask any of our greed driven cellular companies if you don't believe me. Personally, I don't think there are that many people who re-flash their ROMS and would care if the bootloader is locked or not. I think we are a very small percentage of the total.
Honestly77 said:
I don't see locking up phones as a way to "make money" if anything it will alienate your customer/developer base and no one will buy the phones with the locked bootloaders. Especially if HTC doesn't trend up and continues to be a nice company. Motorola has already LOST A LOT of preorders on there Droid X because of the encrypted bootloader. Doesn't matter...they can't seem to keep them in stock anyway. Good riddens to a WAY to large handset with a crappy UI overlay.
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I think you may be overestimating the percentage of android users who are interested in rooting their phones. Motorola will make a tiny bit less money on phone sales, but they will also lose less money on unnecessary replacements.
TNS201 said:
Petitioning? What are you some kind of tree loving hippie? JK That **** never works though. Petitions, protesting, etc is for idiots who think it will accomplish something.
They are even stupider for locking these down. Sure people mess up phones trying to mod them. Now they are making ways for you to totally brick your phone. Don't they think more people will now make insurance claims even more if you try to mod your phone and mess it up.
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Just adding to it. Not saying petitioning and protesting would work, but:
Petitioning and protesting only work through fear. When it's you > the company, then the company will give in. If we have 20 thousand people say that we want truly open handsets, they still won't, because they know theres another hundred thousand that will still buy it. If they fear that if having a locked handset will make them no sales unless they give in, then they will.
Motorola tried leaving it unlocked with the Driod, but then, for whatever reasons, they locked the bootloader in the X. Why do you suppose Motorola would do this? Do they have incompetent marketing people? Remember they have the numbers...we don't. So we can only guess as to why they chose the way they did. Perhaps Verizon had something to do with it? I can't wait to see what they do to the bootloader in the next OTA for the DI.
Asterdroid said:
I think you may be overestimating the percentage of android users who are interested in rooting their phones. Motorola will make a tiny bit less money on phone sales, but they will also lose less money on unnecessary replacements.
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I agree with the notion that the vast majority of android users are not interested in rooting their phones; however, i think that the frequency with which carriers replace phones bricked due to customization is overestimated. I mean I have flashed customs ROMs, radios, recovery images, etc. onto my N1 and my DI dozens upon dozens of times and never run into a problem that couldn't be fixed with a battery pull and a restore (at the most). In contrast, I bricked three iphone 3GS's in six months while attempting to customize them. Obviously, apple is notorious for locking their **** down, so I am not convinced that the notion that verizon will have to replace fewer X's than, say, DI's holds water
This was posted by p3droid on mydroidworld - many of us know him, or have at least heard of him. He knows what hes talking about, and this info is somewhat disturbing. This is just a copy/paste of his OP.
Bootloaders, Rooting, Manufacturers, and Carriers
Background
I don't believe that I need to introduce myself, but if I do my name is P3Droid. I am a phone enthusiast and have been working in the Android platform for 17 months. I have been very lucky in my short time on the Android platform. I think more than anything I have been lucky enough to be in the right places at the right times. The day I first saw and played with the Droid (OG) I thought “that is the ugliest damn phone I've ever played with”. Then I was asked back into the store by my friend (nameless) to get some time with the Android platform and he began to explain to me how open the phone was and how a “smart” person could do anything they wanted to the phone. That turned what I thought was an ugly phone into the sexiest beast ever. I guess that was approximately October of 2009, and I was excited about the possibilities and dove right in without checking the depth of the water.
I spent much of the year on an open phone and an open platform, and sometime in July I picked up a Droid X. I soon found a great bunch of friends and we formed Team Black Hat. Really wanting to break the bootloader, we spent more hours working on it than we did our 9 – 5 jobs. Eventually we came to the conclusion (with help from some unique resources), that we were not going to accomplish our objective. Every so often we still pluck away at it, but we have moved on to other things that will help people enjoy their Droid phones.
Fast forward to October 2010. I'm still in love with the concept of android, and I've done more than my share of developing, themeing, creating ROMS and even hacking. *Having been involved in so many things and having developed some unique contacts, I have been privy to information that is not disseminated to the masses. Some of this information I was asked to sit on. Some information I sat on because I felt it was best to do so for our entire community. You have probably seen me rant on occasion about what I thought the community was doing wrong and causing itself future pain. Each of those days I had received even more disheartening information. So where does this leave me? It leaves me with a difficult choice to make. What to tell, how much to tell, and do I want to give information out that could possible be slightly wrong. I've worked very hard to verify things through multiple sources, when possible, and some other information comes from sources so reliable that I take them at their word.
This brings me up to today. I've tossed and turned regarding how to say this, and how to express all of the information and my feelings in regards to this information. I guess the solution is to just let you all decide for yourselves what you think and what you want to do.
One Shoe Falls
Beginning in July, we (TBH), began hearing things about [FONT=inherit !important][FONT=inherit !important]Motorola[/FONT][/FONT] working on ways to make rooting the device more difficult. This was going to be done via [FONT=inherit !important][FONT=inherit !important]Google[/FONT][/FONT] through the kernel. No big deal we thought, the community always finds a way. When Froyo was released and there was no root for some time we became a bit concerned but soon there was a process and even 1-clicks. This was good news and bad news to me, because it simply meant that they would go back to the drawing board and improve upon what they had done.
During this time there were still little rumors here and there about security of devices, and other such things but nothing solid and concrete. Until November.
The Other Shoe Falls
Beginning in October, the information began coming in faster and it had more of a dire ring to it. It was also coming in from multiple sources. I began to rant a little at the state of our community, and that we were the cause of our own woes. So what did I hear?1. New devices would present challenges for the community that would most likely be insurmountable, and that Motorola specifically – would be impossible to hack the bootloader. Considering we never hacked the previous 3G phones, this was less than encouraging.
2.Locked bootloaders, and phones were not a Motorola-only issue, that the major manufacturers and carriers had agreed this was the best course of action.(see new [FONT=inherit !important][FONT=inherit !important]HTC [/FONT][/FONT][FONT=inherit !important][FONT=inherit !important]devices[/FONT][/FONT])
3. The driving forces for device lock down was theft of service by rooted users, the return of non-defective devices due to consumer fraud, and the use of non-approved firmware on the networks.I think I posted my first angry message and [FONT=inherit !important][FONT=inherit !important]tweet[/FONT][/FONT] about being a responsible community soon after getting this information. I knew the hand writing was on the wall, and we would not be able to stop what was coming, but maybe we could convince them we were not all thieves and cut throats.
Moving along, December marked a low point for me. The information started to firm up, and I was able to verify it through multiple channels. This information made the previous information look like a day in the park. So what was new?1. Multiple carriers were working collaboratively on a [FONT=inherit !important][FONT=inherit !important]program[/FONT][/FONT] that would be able to identify rooted users and create a database of their meids.
2. Manufacturers who supply Verizon were baking into the roms new security features:
a. one security feature would identify any phone using a tether program to circumvent paying for tethering services. (check your gingerbread DroidX/Droid2 people and try wireless tether)
b. a second security feature would allow the phone to identify itself to the network if rooted.
c. security item number 2 would be used to track, throttle, even possibly restrict full data usage of these rooted phones.The Rubber Meets the Road
So, I wish I had more time to have added this to the original post, but writing something like this takes a lot of time and effort to put all the information into context and provide some form of linear progression.
Lets get on with the story. March of this year was a monumental month for me. The information was unsettling and I felt as if we had a gigantic bulls-eye on our backs.
This is what I have heard:1. The way that they were able to track rooted users is based on pushing updates to phones, and then tracking which meid's did not take the update. There is more to it than this but that is the simple version.
2. More than one major carrier besides Verizon has implemented this program and that all carriers involved had begun tracking rooted phones. All carriers involved were more than pleased with the accuracy of the program.1. What I was not told is what the carriers intended to do with this information.3. In new builds the tracking would be built into the firmware and that if a person removed the tracking from the firmware then the phone would not be verified on the network (i.e. your phone could not make phone calls or access data).
4. Google is working with carriers and manufacturers to secure phones, and although Google is not working to end hacking, it is working to secure the kernel so that no future [FONT=inherit !important][FONT=inherit !important]applications[/FONT][/FONT] can maliciously use exploits to steal end-user information. But in order to gain this level of security this may mean limited chances to root the device. (This item I've been told but not yet able to verify through multiple sources – so take it for what you want)
5. Verizon has successfully used its new programs to throttle data on test devices in accordance with the guidelines of the program.
6. The push is to lock down the devices as tight as can be, but also offer un-lockable devices (Think Nexus S).The question I've asked is why? Why do all this; why go through so much trouble. The answer I get is a very logical one and one I understand even if I don't like it. It is about the money. With LTE arriving and the higher charges for data and tethering, carriers feel they must bottle up the ability of users to root their device and access this data, circumventing the expensive tethering charges.
What I would like to leave you with is that this is not an initiative unique to Verizon or Motorola, this is industry wide and encompassing many manufacturers.
So what does all this mean? You will need to make your own conjectures about what to think of all of this. But, I think that the rooting, hacking, and modding community - as we know it - is living on borrowed time.
In the final analysis of all this I guess I'll leave you with my feelings:
I will take what comes and turn it into a better brighter day, that is all I can do because I do not control the world.
Disclaimers:
I am intentionally not including any names of sources as they do not want to lose their jobs.
This information is being presented to you as I have received and verified it. *
I only deal with information pertaining to US carriers and have no specific knowledge concerning foreign carriers. "
**** the carriers. There will be a revolt. There are enough intelligent people in our community to stop this from happening. I went with the Android OS because Apple is a POS and RIM just doesn't offer what I need in a smart phone. The carriers can try doing what they want but there will be an ugly battle.
Despite this being extremely upsetting news, thanks for sharing it. I'm hoping for the best and not going down without a fight.
Just thought of a potential solution. We could have someone develop a program which accepts these apps and finds whatever sort of signature the carriers are checking for. It can keep it on our phone and ping back to the carriers when queried.
Just a rough idea. But I know there are people far more intelligent than me that can get this done. Or perhaps something more ingenious. I have faith. It will be a nuisance but if we support our strongest devs we will get through this until the carriers piss the **** off.
Isn't Google throwing out the baby with the bathwater here? If the main objective of the carriers is to prevent unauthorized tethering, isn't there a way to do that without blocking root access?
bongd said:
**** the carriers. There will be a revolt. There are enough intelligent people in our community to stop this from happening. I went with the Android OS because Apple is a POS and RIM just doesn't offer what I need in a smart phone. The carriers can try doing what they want but there will be an ugly battle.
Despite this being extremely upsetting news, thanks for sharing it. I'm hoping for the best and not going down without a fight.
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This is my gut reaction as well. However...... Having spoken with a friend and engineer in the industry (I cannot say her name so take this quote with as much salt as needed) it was explained to me like this.
" Most cell carrier's infastructure are having a tough time dealing with the current customer load as it is. In fact, if you look at events where the influx of people can shut down networks such as AT&T ( the South by South West music fest in Austin TX for example) the cell carries are currently not too worried about losing, what they believe to be, a few customers.
Especially when you figure in the fact that you modding your phone and placing it on thier network is looked upon as you violating their contract. And as it was YOU who violated the contract in thier eyes, the cell carrier can continue charging you for your contract as well as making you purchase an "approved replacement handset"
I am not sure if this is truly the outlook of the carriers or simply the way one employee understands the situation to be......but it wouldnt surprise me if this was exactly how the dev community was viewed by them.
BUT, being around and playing with my phones for a few years now has taught me one thing. There are people on these forums with everybit the brains and know-how as the engineers the carriers employ. And given enough time EVERYTHING can be cracked.
bongd said:
**** the carriers. There will be a revolt. There are enough intelligent people in our community to stop this from happening. I went with the Android OS because Apple is a POS and RIM just doesn't offer what I need in a smart phone. The carriers can try doing what they want but there will be an ugly battle.
Despite this being extremely upsetting news, thanks for sharing it. I'm hoping for the best and not going down without a fight.
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responses like this make me laugh. A revolt? What, more petitions, more rants on forums? This is a momentum shift that the end user can't do much about. There is pressure from a bunch of angles to start locking down certain aspects of android. If you read the whole post you'd notice the part about how a bunch of these security measures are being baked into android at the google level. This is not just verizon making demands of their phone makers.
and as intelligent as some devs are here, we're going to see their advances slowing way down. People are so hopeful that the devs will crack the bootloader (even though they've driven most of them away), yet they ignore the fact that the droidX has been locked down since release, and little to no progress has been made there. (i'm well aware they are slightly different, so don't bring it up). Even look what they did with the last update to the atrix, they blocked known root methods. No matter what the devs manage to do, teh makers have teams of people that just have to look at the exploits, and close them up.
i'm not saying i agree with the way things are going, i'm just trying to remain focused on the facts and be realistic.
cegna09 said:
responses like this make me laugh. A revolt? What, more petitions, more rants on forums? This is a momentum shift that the end user can't do much about. There is pressure from a bunch of angles to start locking down certain aspects of android. If you read the whole post you'd notice the part about how a bunch of these security measures are being baked into android at the google level. This is not just verizon making demands of their phone makers.
and as intelligent as some devs are here, we're going to see their advances slowing way down. People are so hopeful that the devs will crack the bootloader (even though they've driven most of them away), yet they ignore the fact that the droidX has been locked down since release, and little to no progress has been made there. (i'm well aware they are slightly different, so don't bring it up). Even look what they did with the last update to the atrix, they blocked known root methods. No matter what the devs manage to do, teh makers have teams of people that just have to look at the exploits, and close them up.
i'm not saying i agree with the way things are going, i'm just trying to remain focused on the facts and be realistic.
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I am being realistic. Nothing has been implemented yet, so how can we start brain storming? Nothing but ideas at this point, but it's a hard.
And by a revolt I don't mean one of those stupid petitions. We have people with varying specialties and occupations. Perhaps someone can find a legal clause that will help the battle, something in the ToS that would prevent the segregation of rooted versus non-rooted customers, etc.
Don't get all pissy on me about things. I'm not dreaming of anything outlandish. It's better than being a pessimist and taking it in the ass. Many people chose the Android platform for the freedom it provides. It enough customers are grossly outraged, it will NOT come to pass.
Look at Usage Based Billing. I work for one of the biggest ISPs in Canada and when we tried to introduce UBB we saw customers CHURN tremendously. We've received death threats for Christ sakes... and now ask me, cegna09, please ask if we've decided to go forward and bill customers under UBB?
In case that wasn't blatantly obvious and cynical enough, no, we haven't. It scared CEOs ****less and irritated the hell out of front line staff to the point where many of us feel no loyalty to the company anymore. It has shaken what little trust the consumers had in us and they've flocked for other providers. If Google wants to do this, they'd better be prepared for a ****storm of negative press. This is either fear mongering, exaggerations or a bad idea for Google and wireless carriers.
P.S. I type most of my posts at work so they're not always grammatically sound or eloquent. I don't give a **** though. Thanks for caring.
Okay tracking rooted users is new to me. but I thought the rest was normal procedure?
...Root exploit>carrier update (patches root)>new root exploit>new carrier update (patches new root)>newest root exploit...
How is the op any different than current procedure.? Is it just the addition of carriers tracking rooted users that makes this post notable? Because it seems like scaremongering to me. Should I really be that concerned? I already knew att doesn't like me to tether without a plan, and will do what it can to stop me. I dont have any more reason to believe att will stop service to my phone now than before I read this post.
Basically what started all this guys, was theft of services (free tethering) Everyone who has used the free tethering 'hacks' are largely responsible for this movement. Had everyone modded their phones responsibly, and not stolen services from the carriers because they thought they 'had that right' then this would probably not be happening to the extent that it is. I, for one, do not nor have i ever used a free tethering hack. I have unlimited data and use that freely on my phone. I use my pc for web browsing when i have a lot to do online. Below is a quote from a friend of mine on the Atrixforums.com site that is a very good view and quite accurate interpretation of whats happening.
das8nt said:
Yeah, I always knew something like this was going to come down the pipe... it was only a matter of time.
The third part, The Rubber Meets the Road, has been added. I've had some more time to think about this, and I've come to realize a few things. The following is my opinion on the whole subject. It might not be a very popular one, and posting it is not meant to start a large debate or anything, I just wanted to express my feeling on the matter. Please do not take offense to any of the points I'm trying to make; hopefully some of you know me well enough so far to know that I don't mean offense to anyone.
Opinion starts here...
They're right. The manufacturers, the carriers... they're right. We may not like it, but in the end they both have the full say in what happens. I'll give a few examples in a moment as to why I see it this way, but first I need to let you know where I'm coming from. I have a rooted phone; it's not my first rooted phone. I have tethered; though not often or very much at all, but I have tethered without a tethering plan on my account. I have installed ROMs, custom kernels, MODs, hacks... you name it, I've done it. I enjoy it if only because I can. Did I do it because it was needed? In some circumstances, I might argue, "yes;" in others, not in the slightest... it was just fun. The point to this being is that I have done most of everything that is being discussed in the Food For Thought post; and I've done it because I wanted to.
That brings me to a first example. You buy a car; a $20k car at that. Say you pay cash for it; it's yours. You don't even have to have full coverage insurance on it if you don't want to (some states.) You bought it as you daily driver, but you want to make some mods to it: aftermarket exhaust, lowering kit, cool-air intake.... and nitrous. You can do all of those things.; there's no one stopping you. What you can't do though, is maintain a factory warranty on your new car if you install those mods. When you alter the build of the car you are losing your right to claim that that car was manufactured improperly since it's no longer in the same state in which it was delivered to you. No big deal, right? Nothing ever goes wrong until the warranty expires anyway, we all know that. So, you take it to a drag track to see what it can do; how fast can it go? How quick can it hit the quarter mile line? You want to be know as the fastest, so you don't hold back... you kick in the nitrous.... but there's a problem. You didn't realize that the car was not meant to take that kind of load the way it was built. You blow your engine. Is the dealership or manufacturer going to warranty that engine? Would you really expect them to?
Second example. The same car you purchased, before you ever take it to the track, you want to drive it.... I mean really drive it; feel the true power and handling on the road. You take it out on the Interstate because that has the highest speed limits. You quickly get it up to to 70 mph, but that's not enough. You need more. You start to push it a little farther; no big deal... law enforcement doesn't usually care if you're only going a few mph over the limit, right? Well, you haven't been caught yet, so why not push it a little more? Before you know it you're at 95 mph and you see blue lights coming up quick behind you. Is that office going to let you off the hook because you own the car, have it modded and you feel you can do what you want with it? Would you expect them to?
Yes, we buy the phones. Yes, we own them. Yes, we can mod them how ever we can. What we can't do, though, is agree to a service contract and expect the provider of that contract to allow us to ignore their rules and exploit their services to the point that it costs them money. They are a business. They are not in the business for giving away free service, or replace products because the end user did not use them as intended; if they were they would not be in business very long. The carrier has the right to charge what they do, whether we like it or not. We, as users, have the right to find service elsewhere (most of us) or do with out. We agree to their terms when we allow them to provide us service. You do not have to sign a contract to agree to their terms; activating your phone on their network makes the agreement for you. Manufacturers have the right to lock their phones down, after all, they manufacture them. They are not in business to provide two or three phones for the price of one just because we broke the first couple trying to make them do things they were not intended to do. Again, if they were then they wouldn't be in business very long. If we do not like their practices we can buy from others.
I guess what it all boils down to in my mind is that if modding and hacking had been used the right way, we, the modding community and it's followers, might not have this situation coming down on us. If we did it just to customize our phones the way we want them, I'm sure they would have allowed that and worked with us. Since the opposite has been true for the most part, it surprises me in no way that this is about to happen. Users have been 'jailbreaking' and 'rooting' their phones for years, with a vast majority of them being used to circumvent the rules. So, the rules are about to change... like it or not.
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bongd said:
I am being realistic. Nothing has been implemented yet, so how can we start brain storming? Nothing but ideas at this point, but it's a hard.
And by a revolt I don't mean one of those stupid petitions. We have people with varying specialties and occupations. Perhaps someone can find a legal clause that will help the battle, something in the ToS that would prevent the segregation of rooted versus non-rooted customers, etc.
Don't get all pissy on me about things. I'm not dreaming of anything outlandish. It's better than being a pessimist and taking it in the ass. Many people chose the Android platform for the freedom it provides. It enough customers are grossly outraged, it will NOT come to pass.
Look at Usage Based Billing. I work for one of the biggest ISPs in Canada and when we tried to introduce UBB we saw customers CHURN tremendously. We've received death threats for Christ sakes... and now ask me, cegna09, please ask if we've decided to go forward and bill customers under UBB?
In case that wasn't blatantly obvious and cynical enough, no, we haven't. It scared CEOs ****less and irritated the hell out of front line staff to the point where many of us feel no loyalty to the company anymore. It has shaken what little trust the consumers had in us and they've flocked for other providers. If Google wants to do this, they'd better be prepared for a ****storm of negative press. This is either fear mongering, exaggerations or a bad idea for Google and wireless carriers.
P.S. I type most of my posts at work so they're not always grammatically sound or eloquent. I don't give a **** though. Thanks for caring.
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The world of mobile devices is a bit different though. I would wager a bet that 90% of users have no interest in rooting, modding, etc, or even a knowledge of what it is. They just don't care. So when 10%, or even if it's as high as 20%, of the user base shows dissatisfaction, i doubt it would sway them. In the mobile world you always have the choice to change platforms, carriers, etc. With ISPs (at least here in the US), you really have no choice over who you use for where you live.
And my point on the developers is just that's always easier to close exploits than to find them. And it looks like there is new modification to close exploits. I think it's going to start to turn into a 1 step forward 2 steps back game. I sincerely hope it doesn't go that way, but that's where i see it with the information presented.
The place you might have a chance of fighting is the recent ruling that made it legal to root/jailbreak phones. Though i bet AT&T and verizon's lawyers are hard at work finding ways around that.
Oh, and i never commented on your grammar.
cegna09 said:
The world of mobile devices is a bit different though. I would wager a bet that 90% of users have no interest in rooting, modding, etc, or even a knowledge of what it is. They just don't care. So when 10%, or even if it's as high as 20%, of the user base shows dissatisfaction, i doubt it would sway them. In the mobile world you always have the choice to change platforms, carriers, etc. With ISPs (at least here in the US), you really have no choice over who you use for where you live.
And my point on the developers is just that's always easier to close exploits than to find them. And it looks like there is new modification to close exploits. I think it's going to start to turn into a 1 step forward 2 steps back game. I sincerely hope it doesn't go that way, but that's where i see it with the information presented.
The place you might have a chance of fighting is the recent ruling that made it legal to root/jailbreak phones. Though i bet AT&T and verizon's lawyers are hard at work finding ways around that.
Oh, and i never commented on your grammar.
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I'm sure there are a slew of celebrity lawyers on speed dial, and I know that the Apple jailbreaking case will be strongly referenced if there is a class action lawsuit.
I also recognize and appreciate the circumstances regarding closing and finding exploits. It's always a game of cat and mouse. And it sucks having to find exploits and holes. Sometimes it's easy but sometimes it's extremely tough. I'm hoping it's not the latter.
In any event, I'm going to hold out. I know that there'll be a work around or at least a ton of backlash. You bring up a good point that it's a very small percentage of users who root. But that small percentage is virtually all made up of power users. While we're small in numbers, we're more intelligent than the tweenies who just get Androids for texting and Facebook.
I know that petitions and things like that normally don't get done (I never bothered with the bootloader petition for example) but I know that more constructive and intelligent users will chime in with glorious ideas to keep this **** at bay. I sincerely hope it was a late April fools day joke or something. I don't mind Google data mining and harvesting all my consumer logistics as long as they don't clamp down on my phone. Win win situation. I don't mind their parasitic or insidious intentions at all.
kdspiv said:
And given enough time EVERYTHING can be cracked.
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Except Motorola's bootloaders.
jgc121 -
The two parts of the car arguments are invalid. First, loss of warranty, is invalid due to the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act (federal law) and states that a manufacturer cannot automatically invalidate a warranty because of what an end-user has done. There's a burden of proof. It's a consumer protection.
On your friend's second point, exceeding the speed limit is illegal. It is not in the same class as modifying a device. There is no law being broken. You might argue that unauthorized tethering is theft, which I'd need to hear the argument for - who has sustained damages? How can those damages be quantified?
I do, however, agree that this has been brought upon by the end-users who do naughty things (unauthorized tethering, malware creation, piracy).
RacecarBMW said:
Except Motorola's bootloaders.
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It only takes one disgruntled or sympathetic employee...Where are the social engineers?
Kueller said:
It only takes one disgruntled or sympathetic employee...Where are the social engineers?
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If only someone was willing to risk their job
phobos512 said:
jgc121 -
The two parts of the car arguments are invalid. First, loss of warranty, is invalid due to the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act (federal law) and states that a manufacturer cannot automatically invalidate a warranty because of what an end-user has done. There's a burden of proof. It's a consumer protection.
On your friend's second point, exceeding the speed limit is illegal. It is not in the same class as modifying a device. There is no law being broken. You might argue that unauthorized tethering is theft, which I'd need to hear the argument for - who has sustained damages? How can those damages be quantified?
I do, however, agree that this has been brought upon by the end-users who do naughty things (unauthorized tethering, malware creation, piracy).
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If you read how the car arguments are compared - you will understand my friends point. And just by rooting your device, you void your warranty - just like if you add nitrous to your car - warranty gone.... its the same thing. It is the same as modifying these devices, running 'unauthorized firmware' IS technically a warranty voiding action.
Also - these are not MY opinions - just opinions and information from others that im passing along - dont shoot the messenger buddy And tethering without a plan - the way its setup on the network - is theft. It costs them money, and they dont like it.
ok i can sorta understand them wanting to stop free tethering, but why root in general, some people like adding custome roms, or tweaking themes to make their phone that THEY purchased look the way they want it to. I really don't use tether, but locking down root, that's just ridiculous...smh
No; that's exactly my point. Modifying something you own does NOT automatically void the warranty. Read the act; it isn't complicated. I've been modding vehicles for 10 years - I know the law.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnuson%E2%80%93Moss_Warranty_Act
jgc121 said:
If you read how the car arguments are compared - you will understand my friends point. And just by rooting your device, you void your warranty - just like if you add nitrous to your car - warranty gone.... its the same thing. It is the same as modifying these devices, running 'unauthorized firmware' IS technically a warranty voiding action.
Also - these are not MY opinions - just opinions and information from others that im passing along - dont shoot the messenger buddy And tethering without a plan - the way its setup on the network - is theft. It costs them money, and they dont like it.
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Sent from my MB860 using XDA App
phobos512 said:
No; that's exactly my point. Modifying something you own does NOT automatically void the warranty. Read the act; it isn't complicated. I've been modding vehicles for 10 years - I know the law.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnuson%E2%80%93Moss_Warranty_Act
Sent from my MB860 using XDA App
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I too have been modding vehicles for nearly 15 yrs now, I am an ASE certified technician with EPA certifications, and an Associates Degree in Business Management as well. (Feel free to pm me for proof) I am well aware of this act and the laws. You are missing the point of the previous posts.
A manufacturers warranty would never cover a blown engine due to N20 use.... it just wont. Its intended to cover the engine as it was from the factory. Any changes to the factory setup (within certain limits) are ok. Something like N20 - thats a deal breaker.
As i said before - the previous posts are not MY opinions.... just information i was passing along.
Not sure about that whole Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act..... didn't feel like reading up on it.... but in regards to the whole thing with AT&T and potentially other carriers shutting off all form of cell service to a person with a rooted/jailbroken phone by way of discovery with a special code in the software.... it won't happen unless they're using it in an illegal way (as in using a free tethering workaround, and abusing it to the point that it's easily distinguished that something fishy is going on).... plain and simple. As i mentioned in the other thread with the exact same article linked to in the Atrix forums (one of the other recent threads), the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) was ammended in July 2010, and one of those ammendments was that jailbreaking/rooting a mobile phone to install unauthorized or unapproved applications on the phone is legal.
So.... in regards to the earlier comment someone made laughing at the idea of a "revolt"..... if AT&T starts shutting off service to people who rooted/jailbroke their phone for the sole purpose of either installing a modified ROM or allowing further customisation of the OS than the non-rooted/jailbroke device will allow, then yes, there WOULD be a revolt. That revolt would take the form of... what i believe would fall under a class-action lawsuit. If they can't prove that the person who's service they cut off was using their rooted/jailbroken device in a way that was hindering their service.... which would mostly be the free tethering workarounds and some of those morons downloading quite a few gigabytes of data in a month..... then they would technically be breaking federal law by doing so.
I know I may have some of my facts wrong here, just correct me if I'm wrong.
Since Google bought out Motorola Mobility a while back, wouldn't it make more sense for them to be using Motorola for the "Nexus" phones? Why would they want to team up with Samsung to make something they could do themselves?
Companies "bid" for the opportunity to make the nexus device. Google is afterall a corporate entity. Why would they want to screw themselves out of more money if it was there for the taking?
I do however think it will be better for Moto devices in the long run for updates..
TreyChristopher said:
I know I may have some of my facts wrong here, just correct me if I'm wrong.
Since Google bought out Motorola Mobility a while back, wouldn't it make more sense for them to be using Motorola for the "Nexus" phones? Why would they want to team up with Samsung to make something they could do themselves?
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I've been wondering the same thing. Maybe Samsung's patented the curved display and Google's got a fetish for that?
Regardless, I'm itching to see a Moto nexus phone. Samsung left a bad taste in my mouth with the Captivate, HTC always seems to have some sort of screen/multitouch issue, SE seems like a specialty phone kind of manufacturer, LG? Eh, I probably wouldn't mind the Thrill/3D, but they have yet to prove themselves.
Motorola? I realize there was this tiff about the bootloader, but I'd rather have good, consistent build quality than a lot of other things.
The deal has not yet gone through. Why don't people do any sort of research at all before asking questions? Shareholders are voting on November 17 if the acquisition will go through or not. Secondly, Google has stated many, many times that they will not touch MotoMobility at all. They only want the patents and will not make any changes to MotoMobility's business at all. Period. Also, Samsung makes high quality devices. There's a reason they've been chosen for 2 of the 3 Nexus devices and Moto has been chosen for none. Moto has sold 4.4 million total smartphones in each the last 2 quarters. Samsung sold 30 million devices in the last quarter alone including 10 million SGS2s without even debuting in the US, one of the largest smartphone markets in the world.
From my understanding, Google has not yet purchased Motorola Mobility. The Boards of Directors of both Motorola and Google have approved of the deal but there is a long procedure to be completed in order for this deal to actually go through.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-14531859
xyrovice said:
I've been wondering the same thing. Maybe Samsung's patented the curved display and Google's got a fetish for that?
Regardless, I'm itching to see a Moto nexus phone. Samsung left a bad taste in my mouth with the Captivate, HTC always seems to have some sort of screen/multitouch issue, SE seems like a specialty phone kind of manufacturer, LG? Eh, I probably wouldn't mind the Thrill/3D, but they have yet to prove themselves.
Motorola? I realize there was this tiff about the bootloader, but I'd rather have good, consistent build quality than a lot of other things.
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I don't really understand people, honestly. Motorola has always put out good quality, 100% working phones. The bootloader is unlockable if you want to mess with your phone, but something like a screen issue isn't fixable unless you get a new phone.
edgeicator said:
The deal has not yet gone through. Why don't people do any sort of research at all before asking questions? Shareholders are voting on November 17 if the acquisition will go through or not. Secondly, Google has stated many, many times that they will not touch MotoMobility at all. They only want the patents and will not make any changes to MotoMobility's business at all. Period. Also, Samsung makes high quality devices. There's a reason they've been chosen for 2 of the 3 Nexus devices and Moto has been chosen for none. Moto has sold 4.4 million total smartphones in each the last 2 quarters. Samsung sold 30 million devices in the last quarter alone including 10 million SGS2s without even debuting in the US, one of the largest smartphone markets in the world.
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If Google isn't going to touch MotoMobility, then who is running the company? -.-
TreyChristopher said:
I don't really understand people, honestly. Motorola has always put out good quality, 100% working phones. The bootloader is unlockable if you want to mess with your phone, but something like a screen issue isn't fixable unless you get a new phone.
If Google isn't going to touch MotoMobility, then who is running the company? -.-
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The same people who are running it today. No one is being fired. It was a purely patent acquisition. MotoMobility will remain as it is today. As for the bootloader, it is not unlockable unless something huge leaks. How many phones have had their bootloader unlocked since the OG Droid? 2. The Atrix and the Photon 4g, which is basically an atrix for Sprint. That's it.
1. Google doesn't officially own Motorola Mobility Yet.
2. For those of you who think that google strictly bought Motorola for patents and are not going to take advantage of Owning the Cellular division and developing with motorola before other companies is on a cloud. Of course google isn't going to "admit" that they would do that cause that would cause a semi sorta monopoly so they "Say" they aren't going to do anything for plausible deniability. I mean really come on think about it...They Own a major manufacturer of cellphones and Just want Pantents....give me a break.
malickie said:
1. Google doesn't officially own Motorola Mobility Yet.
2. For those of you who think that google strictly bought Motorola for patents and are not going to take advantage of Owning the Cellular division and developing with motorola before other companies is on a cloud. Of course google isn't going to "admit" that they would do that cause that would cause a semi sorta monopoly so they "Say" they aren't going to do anything for plausible deniability. I mean really come on think about it...They Own a major manufacturer of cellphones and Just want Pantents....give me a break.
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You're absolutely delusional. Motorola is doing so much worse than the other Android manufacturers. They stand to lose a lot if they show any favoritism to Motorola. Samsung sold 30 million smartphones last quarter. HTC Sold 13 million. Motorola sold 4.4 million. Motorola is not a major seller of smartphones. Q2 rankings were apple, samsung, nokia, rim, htc, lg, motorola, huawei, zte, other. You have no idea how business works. Plausible deniability doesn't work here. It'll be as plain as day light if Google ever favors Moto.
edgeicator said:
You're absolutely delusional. Motorola is doing so much worse than the other Android manufacturers. They stand to lose a lot if they show any favoritism to Motorola. Samsung sold 30 million smartphones last quarter. HTC Sold 13 million. Motorola sold 4.4 million. Motorola is not a major seller of smartphones. Q2 rankings were apple, samsung, nokia, rim, htc, lg, motorola, huawei, zte, other. You have no idea how business works. Plausible deniability doesn't work here. It'll be as plain as day light if Google ever favors Moto.
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Dude seriously have you ever worked in a business and have any idea what goes on behind 99% of business's doors and the shady business that goes on? I mean seriously who is delusional thinking that motorola won't take advantage of being owned by google and vice versa. There would be a Major reason for Motorola to take advantage of that considering how bad they are doing in the market and of course it will be as quite as a mouse. Both sides would deny it until blue in the face but still won't stop either from taking advantage of each other. I mean hell just look at RIM or Apple or Android for that matter all of which are in some sort of lawsuit or another for infringement on this or that patent. Would be very easy to mask any favoritism at the moment with all the BS Lawsuits going on right now.
malickie said:
Dude seriously have you ever worked in a business and have any idea what goes on behind 99% of business's doors and the shady business that goes on? I mean seriously who is delusional thinking that motorola won't take advantage of being owned by google and vice versa. There would be a Major reason for Motorola to take advantage of that considering how bad they are doing in the market and of course it will be as quite as a mouse. Both sides would deny it until blue in the face but still won't stop either from taking advantage of each other. I mean hell just look at RIM or Apple or Android for that matter all of which are in some sort of lawsuit or another for infringement on this or that patent. Would be very easy to mask any favoritism at the moment with all the BS Lawsuits going on right now.
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Yea, you definitely have no idea what you're talking about. Favoritism has nothing to do with lawsuits. They wouldn't be in trouble if they collaborated together. Fact of the matter is, HTC and Samsung already are on edge. They are being pressured from outside and within to switch away from Android as it is. Manufacturers that are cooperating with a software vendor do NOT want to compete with that same vendor on a hardware level. As you can see Android hardware manufacturers are not happy and I’m sure will be on the lookout for another mobile OS at the drop of a pin. Google would shoot themselves in the foot if they showed any signs of favoritism to Motorola. Face the facts. Google has little to gain from Motorola doing better at the expense of pissing off the far bigger Manufacturers of Android handsets. The only way Motorola can benefit from this merger is if Google favors Motorola other other manufacturers in regards to early source code access and preferential Nexus selection. Both of these would be painfully obvious to any other manufacturer.
Any hardware company (Motorola, Samsung, etc.) makes money by selling hardware, so they do not want to update software, they want to update hardware and use the new software as a selling point. Their ideologies already clash. Google wants to advance the Android ecosystem. Motorola simply wants a bigger share of that market.
The thing is, Google kind of had its hand forced in this. It's a fact that gets overlooked. Motorola basically started saying they were going to start suing the other manufacturers of Android. I don't know about you, but in my opinion that's a pretty ****ing bad thing for the ecosystem. This wasn't something Google thought of out of the blue. It's something that was honestly hoisted upon them. If they didn't stop Motorola, they would have started suing, other manufacturers would have started adopting WP7. Google doesn't want to lose its controlling grip over Android, and for good reason -- it's a money maker for them right now. By buying Motorola not only does it stop the potential for lawsuits against the other manufacturers, but it also stops the potential for Motorola to start producing WP7 phones as well. The patents were also a very sweet reason, but it wasn't the only reason.
Motorola was also threatening to create it's own private fork of android and it's own market a few months ago. Basically Motorola was looking to be bought. Apparently Microsoft was also interested.
edgeicator said:
Yea, you definitely have no idea what you're talking about. Favoritism has nothing to do with lawsuits. They wouldn't be in trouble if they collaborated together. Fact of the matter is, HTC and Samsung already are on edge. They are being pressured from outside and within to switch away from Android as it is. Manufacturers that are cooperating with a software vendor do NOT want to compete with that same vendor on a hardware level. As you can see Android hardware manufacturers are not happy and I’m sure will be on the lookout for another mobile OS at the drop of a pin. Google would shoot themselves in the foot if they showed any signs of favoritism to Motorola. Face the facts. Google has little to gain from Motorola doing better at the expense of pissing off the far bigger Manufacturers of Android handsets. The only way Motorola can benefit from this merger is if Google favors Motorola other other manufacturers in regards to early source code access and preferential Nexus selection. Both of these would be painfully obvious to any other manufacturer.
Any hardware company (Motorola, Samsung, etc.) makes money by selling hardware, so they do not want to update software, they want to update hardware and use the new software as a selling point. Their ideologies already clash. Google wants to advance the Android ecosystem. Motorola simply wants a bigger share of that market.
The thing is, Google kind of had its hand forced in this. It's a fact that gets overlooked. Motorola basically started saying they were going to start suing the other manufacturers of Android. I don't know about you, but in my opinion that's a pretty ****ing bad thing for the ecosystem. This wasn't something Google thought of out of the blue. It's something that was honestly hoisted upon them. If they didn't stop Motorola, they would have started suing, other manufacturers would have started adopting WP7. Google doesn't want to lose its controlling grip over Android, and for good reason -- it's a money maker for them right now. By buying Motorola not only does it stop the potential for lawsuits against the other manufacturers, but it also stops the potential for Motorola to start producing WP7 phones as well. The patents were also a very sweet reason, but it wasn't the only reason.
Motorola was also threatening to create it's own private fork of android and it's own market a few months ago. Basically Motorola was looking to be bought. Apparently Microsoft was also interested.
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are you sitting on the board of directors of Google? no? do you have access to private information that pertains to Google's plans for Motorola? no? then i guess you have no clue what you're talking about and need to chill out. every single one of your posts is nothing but calling other people idiots and spouting information (without any hard evidence) about future events that people are just SPECULATING about. is it really that annoying to you for other people to have a conversation about possibilities?
Alcapone263 said:
are you sitting on the board of directors of Google? no? do you have access to private information that pertains to Google's plans for Motorola? no? then i guess you have no clue what you're talking about and need to chill out. every single one of your posts is nothing but calling other people idiots and spouting information (without any hard evidence) about future events that people are just SPECULATING about. is it really that annoying to you for other people to have a conversation about possibilities?
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It's called common sense and knowledge. Something 99% of this board apparently lacks. Google has stated MULTIPLE TIMES they won't favor Motorola over their other partners. Every single one of my posts has been backed up by hard numbers and articles. Name anything I have stated to be fact that hasn't been backed up with hard evidence. The person I am responding to insists that Motorola will somehow have backhanded deals with Google when it has been explicitly stated that there will be no benefit for Motorola over other manufacturers from this acquisition. Maybe if posters were somewhat intelligent, I wouldn't have to point out the multitudes of falsities, misinformation, and just straight up FUD they keep claiming.
edgeicator said:
It's called common sense and knowledge. Something 99% of this board apparently lacks. Google has stated MULTIPLE TIMES they won't favor Motorola over their other partners. Every single one of my posts has been backed up by hard numbers and articles. Name anything I have stated to be fact that hasn't been backed up with hard evidence. The person I am responding to insists that Motorola will somehow have backhanded deals with Google when it has been explicitly stated that there will be no benefit for Motorola over other manufacturers from this acquisition. Maybe if posters were somewhat intelligent, I wouldn't have to point out the multitudes of falsities, misinformation, and just straight up FUD they keep claiming.
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Sounds to me like you believe everything you read or what someone tells you. So if the President told you the only way to live was to jump off the Sears tower you would just blindly believe him and go jump off the Sears Tower even though common sense and logic would say wait if I do that I am dead. All I have been saying is Don't believe Everything someone tells you they will Do. Most corporations say One thing and do something completely different behind closed doors.
malickie said:
Sounds to me like you believe everything you read or what someone tells you. So if the President told you the only way to live was to jump off the Sears tower you would just blindly believe him and go jump off the Sears Tower even though common sense and logic would say wait if I do that I am dead. All I have been saying is Don't believe Everything someone tells you they will Do. Most corporations say One thing and do something completely different behind closed doors.
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Way to use a straw man argument. And as I explained earlier. There is a tiny upside to Motorola doing well to a huge downside if they were to get caught red-handed. The risk vs reward is tremendously imbalanced. You'd have to have 0 sense of business if you'd take that risk. The only reason Google did this was to take patents for defense and to defend their partners from Motorola potentially suing them with those same patents they just bought. If you can't see that, there's no helping you.
I could care less "who" makes it, but how about a Nexus phone WITH EXT_SD support already?...
Sent from my GT-I9000 using xda premium
Closing the thread. Please keep the forums civil and respectful. Avoid personal attacks, arguments, and such at all costs.
Thanks guys!
After an unnecessary long wait for Gingerbread release in the UK I have finally upgraded my Atrix to Gingerbread last night, 24/11/2011. My handset is actually T-Mobile's but flashed the retail UK ROM instead using RSDLite tool (used it for the first time) and released myself from the mercy of T-Mobile as they are always last in line for updates in the UK. I was proven right by TRose's post on Motorola's Owner Forums today. Having sim unlocked my phone previously, for a fiver, the transformation to a retail handset is now complete.
I would like to share my experience with Motorola leading to the Gingerbread update. If you have previously owned Motorola handsets, as I have, then you would be familiar with most of the things I have to say.
Obviously I could have done better with my time than typing this post with one figure on my Atrix phone. I believe having a voice regarding matters that affect large communities is very important. One would imagine in 21st century the human rights are observed and respected. I don't think that is the case and in the past ten years I have observed how corporates have been behaving like tyrants. I'm grateful I can submit this post freely about my concerns with Motorola.
Motorola without a doubt is the most arrogant, snob, and out of touch company in the world in my opinion, at least within the same business Motorola operates. This is the company that have measurable procedures in place to maintain their attitude towards matters outside of the company. One has to remember Motorola is a USA based company and they have been around since 1928. A company that established itself in the country where many men and women fought for freedom for the rest to allow anyone to succeed in the land of opportunities, the USA. I couldn't give a better example to which Mr Sanjay Jha an Indian born gentleman has been given the opportunity to lead one of the best known American companies. Was this possible even 30 years ago, I must ask?
What deeply disturbs me about Motorola is the self given rights to have no regards for the customers. Ever since I bought my Motorola Defy, Jan 2011, I have been browsing the Motorola's Forums and I found this pattern where the moderators keep bragging about Motorola's Business Partners and the "Precious Partnerships" but have nothing to say about the customers as if those who actually pay money to Motorola are non-existent. Does Motorola have any customer related slogans these days?
Let me be clear about my thoughts about Motorola before trying to find, speculate, or assume why things have been going the way they have. There is nothing on this planet, as far as I'm concerned, justifies Motorola's behaviour towards its customers, this is totally inexcusable in any context. Motorola can't have people's money then hide herself behind the terms and conditions and expect us not to have any voice over the issues. Only tyrants reserve the rights to themselves, are you one Motorola?
In my opinion the root of the problem is at the very top where you can find a gentleman called Mr Sanjay Jha. Assuming back stabbing wasn't the method of Mr. Jha to get to vice president and president positions in various companies one has to admire what he has managed to achieve. Allow me to remind the younger readers of this post that how important it is to realise the magnitude of Mr. Jha's achievement to be the CEO of Motorola today. Any company in the world only require 'one' CEO but many employees, directors, and so on. The world's population has reached to 7bn already. Today, only Mr. Jha hold that position at Motorola and no one else's.
Most of us would agree that Motorola still got the magic when it comes to hardware design. Of course, not everything Motorola makes is outstanding but for a company to create something like Atrix then it becomes apparent the company has the means to produce quality products in a very competitive market. I often praised the hardware engineers at Motorola but maybe that is because the software engineering division is so awful with no especial talents to be found there.
You might find this very strange if you knew Mr. Jha has a solid career in software engineering but then again what mainly people complain about are software related issues in Motorola phones i.e. performance, annoying issues that make the user experience very poor, very slow to denial of software updates, no commitment to any timelines, and many more.
In the past few weeks the Non-US Atrix Forum has been a battle ground for the UK users, naturally because of the English language. My threads were removed, my posts were censored occasionally after days of submission, my account was disabled five times, and at least I know one of my disabled accounts was used by Motorola. Please see the attachment and the explanation below. My goal was to give a medicine of their own and exercise my rights as a consumer whom felt Motorola clearly being abusive to Non-US consumers. I cannot speak behalf others in here but would like to acknowledge I was aware of the tactics being adopted to continue the battle with Motorola. I am humbled by the supports I got from other members and the participations to defend their own consumers' rights.
I'm really curious to find out why Motorola has been doing this and what makes them the right to treat their consumers the way they have done since a long time now. Mr. Jha was appointed in 2008 and the first Android phone from Motorola was released in October 2009, Motorola DROID (Known as Milestone in Europe). With the UK (Glasgow & Liverpool) history of Mr. Jha I wouldn't be surprised if he inherited some of the bad practices some of British retail groups have/had. In such business strategy a company provides next to zero customer service, puts the salesmen on high commissions, and make a huge fortune by selling insurance and extended warranties at distortion prices at same time. The outcome? Most of the salesmen had disappeared, people often don't pay for extended warranties and the companies in questions established themselves in a market where there won't be any rivals. Since then the customer service of these companies have been improved but not fixed. These companies somehow expect pad on the shoulder for this now, cheeky buggers. Motorola is not a retail company but I can see customers are not the focal point of the current business strategy when it clearly should be. Allow me to do an analogy if I may.
Apple and Motorola both are arrogance towards their customers but for very different reasons. Apple tells the customers you have no say in what we want you to have but should you choose us we will give you the best customer service experience. Why is that? Because Apple first respect themselves before respecting the consumers of their products. Motorola on the other hand, has no self-respect, don't believe in their own products and very disrespectful to their customers. That is the reason Apple is where they are and where the Motorola is today. Apple kept their consumers well informed and provided timelines in iPhone 4s battery saga so far but Motorola have been playing psychological war games with its consumers all the way. Please remember, Motorola has never broken any promises before because the promise itself was the game strategy to manage their plan to release the updates when they wish. Motorola has no short of talents in this department. The department is called the PR Machine.
I once phoned a UK Motorola number to find out where I could send my Atrix's faulty battery to for a replacement before someone grabbed the phone off the lady I was talking to and told me not to call again and hanged up on me. To me that was the true face of Motorola where their staff have no regards for the company's consumers.
I believe it was around mid October that Motorola officially announced, via the Forum Manager, due to the bugs mid-November was likely the release date. At that time I promised to keep my eyes on things to verify the claim that Motorola was hard at work fixing things. I even said they couldn't give us a ROM with a built date earlier than the announcement's date. Well, have a guess? In fact they did, the UK retail Atrix Gingerbread has 22 September build date. Motorola virtually has had the UK Retail ROM for two months while they decided to lock the main thread with unjust excuses and carried on censoring and not allowing users to share knowledge. Motorola couldn't even be consistent with the censorship implementation. Please bear in mind that all the tests that they claim do are done before the last build date.
The remaining of this post is not a personal attack on the Motorola's Forum staff but my chance to have my say when they censored me and disabled my accounts on regular basis to prevent me to have my say.
Mark, the forum manager, you are not as nice as you claim to be. Your number one fan is "you". I often read your posts how you bragged about your niceness. I have seen enough in my life, being in the age I am, be able to read between lines. You know very well that you have concealed information from the forum members and lied about how much you knew whilst claiming you are on our side. I appreciate the fact you have a job to do but I cannot knowingly lie or conceal information from others like the way you do. You must have the qualities to be able to do the job you've been doing for sometime now. To me any persons with those qualities could not be nice and someone I could trust and this is a common sense as far as I'm concerned.
Also would like to remind Motorola that in spite of your measurable and misrable procedures in place to control consumers and how you badly treated the UK users I have noticed the level of financial damage UK users managed to impose on you individually. Maybe that has contributed to the decision that Atrix 2 is not coming to the UK but I think it is understood that you cannot mess with us.
After the main discussion thread was locked by Mark then Matt opens a new thread "Are UK Atrix owners satisfied customers Yes or No? Please give reasons.". To this date only 27 replies can be counted for and few of them are off the topic. In a way I'm glad people didn't provide valuable information to Motorola because they don't deserve it. I have minimised the chance that Motorola would steal my usage patterns for their financial gain by blocking their master cloud server's ip address listed under the System Information and also frozen the update related programs that would upload the collected data to the Motorola's servers.
Mr. Jha! for the sakes of all Indians I hope you never find a place in the political systems of India. This is evident that you have no regards to civility.
The moral of this post is to remind the readers you do have rights beyond the wordings on Motorola's Terms and Conditions and as consumers we can be vocal on public domains such as XDA. The demand for Gingerbread was justified as all UK users purchased their handsets with the promise of it by Motorola's precious business partners. You won't even get a Thank You from me after what you put me through Motorola. Next ICS campaign.
I can't expect much of the USA tech news sites but UK tech sites have been awfully quiet about Gingerbread saga other than Techradar's Kate Solomon, having bigger balls than the male reporters, to make a reference about the forum thread being closed by Motorola. Thank you Kate.
"This will probably still irk the reams of users waiting to hear about the long-promised Gingerbread update for the UK - it's been out in the US for months now, and Motorola has taken the step of shutting down the forum thread on the subject." Kate Solomon (Techradar)
The following words became defiant words against Motorola during the last weeks.
Alcohol, Custom ROM, Samsung, Apple, HTC, LG, RIM, ZTE, and Nokia
Known as Atrix Lee on Motorola Atrix (Non-US) Forum.
Well said Lee.
I used to show my Atrix off proudly to friends and colleagues. Now I don't.
I bought HTC for my workforce and a Motorola Atrix for myself. I regret the Atrix choice.
I'm sure the vast majority of Atrix fans in the UK have now changed their opinions and many (like myself) won't be buying any Motorola products in the future. I think calls for honesty, decency, ethical behaviour etc., won't change Motorola's behaviour. It's a top down issue and the top simply isn't interested. The only way Motorola will change is by seeing an effect in their sales. So I urge anyone who is considering to buy Motorola products, to think again. Buy from a company that cares what you think and wants you as a customer 6 months later. That copmpany is without a doubt, NOT Motorola.
Let me explain the attached picture and the point of it. As you can see at the very top of the picture I am logged in to Motorola's forum using my Atrixlee4 account that was created the same day as when I took the screenshot. You also will notice a thread (second from the top) that shows atrixfury as the last active user in the same thread two hours prior to taking the screenshot. Here is the thing... the atrixfury account was registered by me and it was disabled for days before created atrixlee4 account. Since the last post of the thread wasn't created by me then that means a post must had been modified by atrixfury to be shown as the last active user.
What Motorola was modifying under my account? What sort of company would do that? There is a very good chance Motorola had used my other disabled accounts too but just caught them once.
I read. I agree with ConEdLtd, I would never buy another Motorola... EVER. By far the worst support known to mankind. Might once I get the chance move back to Samsung, at least they update their phones nowadays. There are unknown delays on the French Orange update for some reason, and they won't tell anyone on the facebook page... Go figure...
Am interested in how you flashed the Atrix to UK retail. I too have a T-Mobile Atrix which I have network unlocked. But when I use the Motorola software tool it doesn't give me the chance to download the UK retail package that I can then use in RSDLite tool, it just says no software update avaliable??
jonny-roger said:
Am interested in how you flashed the Atrix to UK retail. I too have a T-Mobile Atrix which I have network unlocked. But when I use the Motorola software tool it doesn't give me the chance to download the UK retail package that I can then use in RSDLite tool, it just says no software update avaliable??
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You can download the file from here. Then flash it using RsdLite tool. To download the file use opera instead please. With IE the site wrongly assumes you are trying to download multiple files at same time.
Please use these instructions as guidelines:
1. Backup your data
2. Perform a hard reset
3. Wipe the cache. If for any reason booting your phone normally after this stage then skip the Motorola account setup.
4. Use any machine but a machine with windows 64bit OS. Many people including myself having problems to get the phone to be recognised by rsdlite.
5. install Motorola's usb drivers
6. install rsdlite
7. Reboot the machine
8. Follow the instructions of rsdlite to flash the downloaded sbf file here
9. After the flashing please perform step 2 & 3 again just in case.
Good luck and please follow things with patience and at your own risks.
What it tells you when a company currently reshaping the market with their Android platform start cutting R&D costs, globally, from the company [Motorola Mobility] that they have recently acquired? Actually few things.
Source to the cut costing: http://www.slashgear.com/google-motorola-cuts-costing-us-340-but-theyre-only-the-start-04250360/
- Google's Android mission is not what it makes to the naked eyes. Something I have always claimed
- Google would want to pass on major potential financial losses to the other entities
- Motorola Mobility is no longer a reliable manufacturer in which consumers would want to purchase hardware from. If targets are not met Moto stops providing support, they have already strongly demonstrated that. With the smaller budget Moto has, it puts them in more fragile position compared to the other manufacturers
- I predict Motorola Mobility "most likely" wouldn't make Android phones in five years time which is in line with the end of five years promise the Chinese government got from Google to keep Android open-source in exchange to agree to the acquisition. No one has ever questioned why a Government has to request something that allegedly free and open-source already as a bargaining chip? This is something Google doesn't want anyone [General Public] to know.
If you agree with any of the points in above then you should realise Motorola Mobility now is an unreliable company to purchase hardware from which require constant software updates i.e. Smartphones.
Well... It just looks like Google wants to annihilate Motorola. Now they got their tech, they don't care about Moto anymore. They have a partnership with Samsung for a long time now, we can't expect a Motorola-made Nexus device anymore.
CSharpHeaven said:
What it tells you when a company currently reshaping the market with their Android platform start cutting R&D costs, globally, from the company [Motorola Mobility] that they have recently acquired? Actually few things.
Source to the cut costing: http://www.slashgear.com/google-motorola-cuts-costing-us-340-but-theyre-only-the-start-04250360/
- Google's Android mission is not what it makes to the naked eyes. Something I have always claimed
You say you have always claimed this, so you must have a theory as to what they are really doing?
- Google would want to pass on major potential financial losses to the other entities
Which "other entities" are you referring to?
- Motorola Mobility is no longer a reliable manufacturer in which consumers would want to purchase hardware from. If targets are not met Moto stops providing support, they have already strongly demonstrated that. With the smaller budget Moto has, it puts them in more fragile position compared to the other manufacturers
You have no idea what Motorola Mobility's budget is, nor what the corporate strategy is as they and Google move forward.
- I predict Motorola Mobility "most likely" wouldn't make Android phones in five years time which is in line with the end of five years promise the Chinese government got from Google to keep Android open-source in exchange to agree to the acquisition. No one has ever questioned why a Government has to request something that allegedly free and open-source already as a bargaining chip? This is something Google doesn't want anyone [General Public] to know.
Your predictions are based on personal assumptions and a complete lack of knowledge regarding corporate acquisitions imo, and the resulting restructuring that occurs, and nothing to do with the article you have put up a link to. Every major organization which is bought out by another, usually bigger, organization goes through major restructuring, layoffs, plant/site closures, and ultimately alignment with the corporate strategies of the purchasing body. Customer service and support always suffers through this teething period. I predict Motorola Mobility won't even exist in 5 years, let alone design and manufacture devices. They will either be stripped and sold off, or swallowed whole and devoured by Google, but then again, my predictions are also assumptions.
If you agree with any of the points in above then you should realise Motorola Mobility now is an unreliable company to purchase hardware from which require constant software updates i.e. Smartphones.
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Cutting R&D costs doesn't necessarily mean an organization is going out of business, or stopping development. It can simply mean they have defined where Motorola was going wrong, and are adjusting for future R&D and NPI activities. If they plan on releasing only a couple of high end devices a year, why would they need a large R&D team. You keep the cream and trim the fat. Retain the achievers and get rid of the slackers.
CaelanT said:
Cutting R&D costs doesn't necessarily mean an organization is going out of business, or stopping development. It can simply mean they have defined where Motorola was going wrong, and are adjusting for future R&D and NPI activities. If they plan on releasing only a couple of high end devices a year, why would they need a large R&D team. You keep the cream and trim the fat. Retain the achievers and get rid of the slackers.
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Entities refer to those who are part of Android Alliance program for instance.
I have been writing about Android on XDA on many occasions, some were talk of tech-media months later. I have removed some content (in form of article) from XDA before in protest of a thread closure. I'm learning to move on from incidents like that now. You can search my threads from my profile.
I formed my opinion on Motorola mainly based on actual shortcomings in the past nearly two years that has nothing to do with their budgets. However, I have to remind you that Motorola had the money to give one individual person [Sanjay Jha] $66m and god knows how much collectively the executives received but Motorola, apparently, didn't have the money to hire contractors for six months to cook the ICS ROM for us. So I might don't know how much budget they have but for sure I know Motorola Mobility has no clue in "budgeting" plan.
It is well documented what Chinese government asked regarding Android remain open-source for the next five years. Google it please. Take my word for it, many things in this acquisition will remain secret anyway. Please read your own comment in the same section to see how contradictory you sounded.
I have never made a link between R&D cost cutting and Motorola Mobility being shut down. I haven't even said Motorola Mobility was going bust soon, you did.
I'm so glad Motorola split. I love Motorola hardware.
Sent from my Atrix 4g MB860 running leaked official Motorola ICS
Slymayer said:
Well... It just looks like Google wants to annihilate Motorola. Now they got their tech, they don't care about Moto anymore. They have a partnership with Samsung for a long time now, we can't expect a Motorola-made Nexus device anymore.
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I don't think many of us were expecting a Motorola nexus device.
Sent from my MB855 using xda premium
CSharpHeaven said:
Google's Android mission is not what it makes to the naked eyes. Something I have always claimed
You say you have always claimed this, so you must have a theory as to what they are really doing?
Entities refer to those who are part of Android Alliance program for instance. So please explain where you get this theory of passing on financial losses from.
I have been writing about Android on XDA on many occasions, some were talk of tech-media months later. I have removed some content (in form of article) from XDA before in protest of a thread closure. I'm learning to move on from incidents like that now. You can search my threads from my profile. I'm not protesting your thread, and it makes no difference to me how much you have written about Android. I could write about knitting all day,but that doesn't mean I know how to "stitch one".
I formed my opinion on Motorola mainly based on actual shortcomings in the past nearly two years that has nothing to do with their budgets. However, I have to remind you that Motorola had the money to give one individual person [Sanjay Jha] $66m and god knows how much collectively the executives received but Motorola, apparently, didn't have the money to hire contractors for six months to cook the ICS ROM for us. So I might don't know how much budget they have but for sure I know Motorola Mobility has no clue in "budgeting" plan. We all know corporate big wigs get massive payouts. That's a given in any large corporation. Where do you get that Motorola couldn't afford to hire contractors from? I'm betting Motorola/Google have very good experience in budgeting. Companies do not grow as big as them without strategic budgeting, and a ruthless business sense. New technology is all about time to market............beating your competitor to release. It's never been about consumers, and this has nothing to do with budgets in the sense of lack of budget, but rather huge ROIC numbers of 25+% being required by greedy shareholders who will cancel NPI projects in the blink of an eye if they do not meet target costs of 60%-62% profit margins.
It is well documented what Chinese government asked regarding Android remain open-source for the next five years. Google it please. Take my word for it, many things in this acquisition will remain secret anyway. Please read your own comment in the same section to see how contradictory you sounded. I have not argued this point with regards to the Chinese government, but rather the 5 year part. I see it that they will not exist in 5 years because if they aren't making phones they have nothing to exist for other than development, and they will be wholly integrated into Google by then. If Google doesn't want anyone to know, then how do you know?
I have never made a link between R&D cost cutting and Motorola Mobility being shut down. I haven't even said Motorola Mobility was going bust soon, you did. Seems like your whole post was pointed at budgetary cuts, R&D activity cost cutting, and Moto Mobility not making phones in 5 years. Maybe I was incorrect in reading between the lines and seeing reduced budgets, job losses, and a 5 year life span. In any event, what you said does not reflect the article you linked to other than R&D spending cuts.
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Anyway, I'm on my hols for 2 weeks after tomorrow, so I'm gonna go have a beer or three!
CaelanT said:
Anyway, I'm on my hols for 2 weeks after tomorrow, so I'm gonna go have a beer or three!
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Back in March 2012 I started a thread with the following title: "Android a Fragmented, Differentiated, and Misrepresented Platform". I completed the first six parts taking me over 100 hours of work before I removed them which I have already provided the reason. I still have a copy of the original works. As you can guess by now, it would take a lot of effort just to answer your first question. I might complete the articles or use them as part of other future articles one day.
When others investing money in developing hardware for Android then Google has nothing to lose should market take a 360 degree on Android for instance.
You are assured bragging about something is not my style but I will go to the end of the world for what I believe in. Several parts of the articles actually covered the technical side of Android rather than the business model of it.
Sorry I can't make any useful comment about your fourth paragraph. I made a point and you turned into a very complicated matter in particular in the beginning of your paragraph.
I was actually being very careful to write Motorola Mobility wouldn't (most likely but not surely) make hardware such as smartphones in fives years time when it requires constant software support. The reason was Motorola Mobility develops other products such as Bluetooth headphones, TV Set Box, and etc.
It is my fault not citing from the article in the first place which was the following;
"Other impacted territories are Asia and India, with cuts in R&D spending across various locations in Chicago, Sunnyvale, and Beijing."
In my opinion the intention of Google to cut spending in R&D is far more important than what was being reported which was Google has realised even scaling down is going cost the company a fortune.
This is what wikipedia has to say about R&D
"In one model, the primary function of an R&D group is to develop new products; in the other model, the primary function of an R&D group is to discover and create new knowledge about scientific and technological topics for the purpose of uncovering and enabling development of valuable new products, processes, and services." -- Wikipedia
Even if Motorola Mobility uses both models that were described in above description one can say (as I did) Motorola Mobility or rather Google planned (might still be on) to stop or reduce developing new products or innovating new products/services/technology (second model). Obviously when R&D is scaled down then all the forces across all business processes also need to be scaled down otherwise, the business is simply will waste money.
Motorola Mobility stock share should lose values based on this report alone because clearly Motorola Mobility no longer wishes to be proactive in the very competitive market. From consumers point of view this should be a further warning that things are not promising at all.
Enjoy your long holiday and see you around on XDA soon.
I remember the article you wrote because I read it. Why you had to remove it I have no idea, and I am disappointed that you did.
<edit> Went back and looked through that thread. And here I thought I could be a royal arse at times! XDA can be a very rough place sometimes.
That being said, I manage R&D activities in a very large global company which is 85% focused on R&D and NPI, with very little manufacturing occurring other than with 3rd party vendors in low cost countries.
All arguments aside, I was pushing for an explanation of your comments which did not seem to relate much to the article you linked, or the thread title. Your last post explains your reasoning behind your comments much better.
Cheers!
Software development costs could be being cut as Google may be moving Motorola onto having a pure android experience. As Google has its own devs, why get moto to change anything?
Sent from my MB860
tomh235 said:
Software development costs could be being cut as Google may be moving Motorola onto having a pure android experience. As Google has its own devs, why get moto to change anything?
Sent from my MB860
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Thank you for your inputs. I have to disagree with your point on pure Android experience which you must meant Nexus phones. I'm glad you mentioned that since I had few things to say about it.
As it has been reported Google is expanding its Nexus program to allow multiple manufacturers to release their own Nexus version. A careful examination would reveal a brand in Android ecosystem only would be distinguishable by differentiation i.e. Home Launchers and features. Many Android users would agree that they often miss features when move on to a pure Android experience.
Now here is my take on the Nexus program. Not many people noted that the Nexus program has brought a huge financial reward to the manufacturers who participated in it by actually establishing themselves in Android market generating more revenue from selling their other product lines. Samsung is very good example, while their Nexus range did well but SGII, GNote (probably equal to GNexus), and SGIII did far better. HTC only has itself to blame for not taking advantage of the opportunity and even though the following year of their Nexus release they did well but they went down the hill by releasing handsets that were aggressively designed for profits only i.e. the Sensation range.
The same pattern can also be observed in Google Store where developers participate in Google's promotional programs where they reduce their prices for a period of time but end up with significant revenue increase and jumping ranking position in application listings.
Now that this marketing method has been proven to work with Android consumers it would be feasible for other manufacturers to join the Nexus program, at same time. I have my reservations about the impact of more than two manufacturers participating in the Nexus program.
What concerns me the most about Nexus program is its hidden agenda. For one, Google has been trying to make Cloud services as a vital entity in their mobile platform. The obsession with cloud services is a worrying factor especially when all parties (i.e., Google, Manufacturers, and Network Operators) involved wanting your data to be stored on their servers. Nexus phones share one feature in common and that is the ommission of the SD-Card port. The LG Optimus Nexus has been said not to have the SD-Card port either. Please remember, if corporates fail to predict the consumers behaviour correctly then they would attempt to introduce that behaviour to the consumers eventually.
I know Google enough (observations) to know they don't rush into things for not being noticed. While they have good alliances with their business partners but they can seek other agendas at same time. In the world of politics it is known as "Parallel Politics". Google is the most involved tech company in the world with global politic activities. I'm willing to say, their involvement is almost in the same level as the USA government in many terms.
In my opinion the lack of upgrades would be in Google's benefits since they own and run the Nexus program itself and in our case (Atrix and Proton owners) they own Motorola anyway. Motorola's Patents was a good reasoning point, for general public, to acquire Motorola but I have my feelings it was more than the patents, keeping my eyes on this anyway.
Sorry, I never meant to write this much but now that I did I would like also to expose the $100 offer program from Motorola. A publicity stunt that would look Motorola to come across considerate when it is hardly going to cost them anything in fact. Here are my reasons;
- Upset Motorola users wouldn't want anything to do with Motorola anymore therefore the $100 is worthless
- Many users have claimed they can get more money by selling their phones. The $100 offer therefore is worthless.
- Considering the above point Motorola in fact is ripping Motorola users twice over. Remember you have to give up your phone to quality for $100
- Virtually all Network Operators have recycling-program where they buy back phones. Therefore Motorola did not offer anything new to the ripped off customers
- A cheap attempt by Motorola to keep consumers on their brand to shift more new phones, in numbers, for future financial reports
Update:
Droid-life just reported the following; "Server Logs Hint at Motorola Nexus Tablet and Phone?"
Source: http://www.droid-life.com/2012/10/05/server-logs-hint-at-motorola-nexus-tablet-and-phone/
Busy time for Nexus Program this year where potentially five manufacturers (Motorola, Asus, HTC, Samsung, LG) will have Nexus devices out before the year is out.