By When the Motorola Droid 2 was spotted at a NASA trade show a month ago, the spotter saw that it was running Android 2.1 with what looked to be MOTOBLUR on top (later confirmed to be the same custom skin for the Motorola Droid X that Motorola wasn’t naming). When asking a Motorola rep about the skin, they stated it was just a placeholder for testing and that the device would be housing vanilla Android. If these dummy phones (which are used for in-store display and advertising purposes) are real (and accurate), then the custom skin (which Motorola isn’t calling MOTOBLUR) will remain intact.
The dummies are being sold by Cellular Nationwide Network for $29.99. Pretty useless unless you get a kick out of trying to trick people into thinking you have a Droid 2 (which wouldn’t actually be an easy thing to do considering it looks almost exactly like its predecessor). Oh, and it wouldn’t be a bad buy if you’re running a retail store and planning on carrying the device, of course, but I imagine those logistics have already been taken care of.
[via Droid-Life]
I’m still holding out some hope that the true Droid line(2.0, 3.0, etc) will have unencrypted bootloaders. Give us a vanilla, hackable experience please!
You and me both. I can’t help but think they caved under pressure from VZ to make sure people don’t tether their phones without paying a premium.
nice. droid 1.2 certainly looks prettier than its predecessor. Not as “manly” looking as the first, which means chicks wont be shy sporting it. As for that ninja blur crap, no surprise. Thats what we were told since the first pictures were leaked. I personally believe vanilla android is as good as dead, what a shame.
@Wont Tell
I can understand Verizon’s perspective on that. If they were charging per megabyte I’d be of the opinion that they can’t tell me what I use my data connection for. But with an unlimited data plan, you could argue that they need to charge per device connected to 3G.
But I don’t think that’s what’s going on here. People with rooted Droids running Froyo can’t really tether–when they try to load a web page on their computers, they get redirected to a Verizon site asking them to sign up for the service.
I can’t say I fully understand the refusal of manufacturers to give customers a full Google experience. Maybe they’re trying to re-enforce brand loyalty by providing a unique user interface. Maybe they have lucrative deals with app developers like Blockbuster. Maybe they have software people with nothing better to do than try to re-write the operating system.
“I can’t help but think they caved under pressure from VZ” — you make it sound like it was a test of wills. If selling a phone to a major carrier is contingent on a particular feature the customer wants or doesn’t want, it’s not a matter of ‘if’ but ‘how much?’. Phones, especially exclusives, are designed from the start with carrier input.
I like the all black better. The silver makes it look cheap.
I love how it says “Display simulated and subject to change” lol (:
Yeah they are going to lock down the bootloaders motorola stated already that they would do this so looks like it will be that much harder to root and load custom roms