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Last week, Motorola Mobility CEO Sanjay Jha was caught on the record saying that poorly-developed Android apps in the market are to blame for poor device performance and battery life. What’s more is that he claimed MOTOBLUR would be able to help with the battery life part in the future with technology that’ll show which apps on their phone eats the most battery. He came under heavy fire from the community, including some words from yours truly.
They’ve clarified the CEO’s remarks, saying “he did not state that 70% of smartphone returns was due to third-party applications, but that examples of potential contributing factors are battery life, sluggish operation and third-party applications.”
That’s all fine and dandy, except that is not what he said at all. In his words, his belief is that, because the Android market is more open than others, more applications aren’t designed for optimal power consumption, stating “power consumption and CPU use, those apps are not tested. We’re beginning to understand the impact that has [on battery life and performance].”
Funny, that, considering most folks blame MOTOBLUR for their devices’ bad performance and poor battery consumption, stating performance is just as bad out of the box as it is when they install 10-30 applications. And from my own personal experience, MOTOBLUR absolutely does bog Android way down.
We know the PR folks at Motorola are just doing their jobs, but there’s no way to skewer that one. On the bright side, they did state that they’re 100% behind Android developers and want nothing more than to provide support. Unfortunately, this goes in the exact opposite direction. [Computer World]
Blur is horrible, it’s the only reason I rooted my Droid2.
Just for those comments the only way out , is to UNLOCK the boot loaders so people can truly have control over their own devices .
Must be some other dev community they are talking about.
“Everyone sucks and we don’t!”
“…What we meant to say was that some suck, but don’t suck as hard compared to the one’s that suck a lot and we still don’t suck at all. As a matter of fact, we’ll help you suck less with our non-sucky software.”
LOL Motorola just fisted the android community. Hopefully consumers can see their stance on not only those who buy their devices but those who write the programs that bring consumers to their devices.
Gotta make one of those “Goodbye Moto” remixes.
The reason I returned by Droid X was constant re-boots, moody wifi and extremely poor battery life. I don’t know if it was Blur or hardware, but Motorola is accountable for both.
same deal with my wifes DX, but since the OTA update to Gingerbread, her phone is running a thousand times better.. she was a few days away from tossing it for a different phone but now, she is totally happy with her phone.
Not debating that motoblur hogs resources, just saying from my experience that not everything is or should be motorolas fault.
same with my D2. VZW sent me a DInc. so i’m happy about that. but it took me replacing the D2 5 times…
Then why do they continue to lock the bootloader if they support the dev community? All lies is what it is.
How does locking the bootloader affect app development?
Dev community goes much further than just app development….
This is a question that’s also applicable to apps in Android: ‘Would you leave your house door open 24/7? I definitely would not do that. Unfortunately there are bad people who can do a lot of damage by putting in malware masked as an apps in the open Android market. It’s already happening and more are to be expected. Android/Google should put some kind of control before we get into more trouble.
“Would you leave your house door open 24/7?”
I disagree with this analogy. It’s more like having the keys to your house and then allowing whether or not to leave the door unlocked and then choosing whether to add some other security to it.
Manufacturers should leave their bootloaders locked but allow a way for users, if they want to, to unlock it. The Nexus One, and S have a ‘fastboot oem unlock’ command that’ll let you unlock the bootloader but not before warning you first. Yeah, I could go out and get a Nexus phone if I really wanted the easy of rooting my device, but I shouldn’t have to. I know I’ll void the warranty and possibly brick my phone if I do something stupid in the process but I should have the right to do this sort of thing. We have this right when we purchase a computer. How is this any different?I’m part of the community that wants full openness on these phones and I’m sure we’re a small percentage but put a disclaimer on the phones for the bootloaders and let the users do what they want to do.
Part of the problem is that people who brick their phones doing things they full well know void the warranty still return the phones that “just stopped working” and there’s not much the manufacturer can do about it since they can’t tell on the spot why it was bricked. The more returns, the lower the profit margins, the higher the cost for everyone to cover.
One reason that people want unlocked phones is to remove so-called “bloatware”. I agree that it can be annoying, but its presence there keeps the cost of the phone down. Carriers strike deals with certain products to have them preinstalled. It’s a form of advertising and just like advertising allows things like web content and TV to be free, it helps subsidize the cost of the phone.
Would the people who want unlocked phones be willing to pay full price with no warranty coverage? I doubt it.
People will still hack the phones with the bootloader locked, but it will be far fewer people than if it was a wide open phone. On the other hand, once a phone is out of contract and off warranty, there’s far less reason it should stay locked, and a case can be made to have it unlocked at that point. Then again, an unlocked phone means it becomes possible for users to get past blocks on services to which they don’t subscribe, like tethering, so carriers might not be in favor of unlocking them for that reason.
chris125 didn’t say “app development”, he said “dev community”. Totally different things.
How many developers are doing custom ROMs? How many custom ROMs would you actually trust putting on your phone? What percentage of the user base even cares about custom ROMs? It’s a tempest in a teacup.
Even though I root and flash custom ROMs myself, point taken. But what do custom ROMs have to do with “app development”? By dev community, I assume Chris meant the people over at SDX, XDA, Cyanogenmod, et al. who make custom ROMs, mods, themes, and the like. Not the people who beta test their apps through the XDA forums. As I said before, “app development” and “dev community” are citing basically 2 different groups of people. You failed to prove this true/false in your response. So again, what is the connection between custom ROMs (dev community) and app development? How did you turn Chris’s “dev community” into your “app development”? The title even says “… they’re appreciative of the DEV COMMUNITY”.
In so far as app development, that is the _only_ dev community that Motorola is apparently supporting at the moment, so if Chris was talking about something else he was going off on a tangent anyhow.
As for the rest, you pointed out a broader definition of dev community and I expanded upon my original question.
@TalkingMoose:disqus I do see what your saying in the first third of your statement, but when you (or anyone else for that matter) hear the words “dev community”, what initially comes to mind? App developers or ROM makers/modders/themers? I personally think of the the latter and I believe most others do too. Hence, Chris’s meaning and wording. Or do you hear the words and think of the “broader definition” as you put it?
@TalkingMoose:disqus I do see what your saying in the first third of your statement, but when you (or anyone else for that matter) hear the words “dev community”, what initially comes to mind? App developers or ROM makers/modders/themers? I personally think of the the latter and I believe most others do too. Hence, Chris’s meaning and wording.
@TalkingMoose:disqus I do see what your saying in the first third of your statement, but when you (or anyone else for that matter) hear the words “dev community”, what initially comes to mind? App developers or ROM makers/modders/themers? I personally think of the the latter and I believe most others do too. Hence, Chris’s meaning and wording. Unless you hear the term and initially think of the broader definition?
My bad for the triple comment… No matter what browser I used, it initially didn’t show that comment was posted…
When I read “dev community” and “Motorola” in the title of a post the context suggests app development and nothing more. First because the original comments by Jha were directed toward apps using excessive battery, and second because Motorola does not support custom ROMs. The only “dev community” that the context supports is the app developers.
Assuming that dev community means anything else in this context is broadening the scope of the discussion beyond its bounds. It’s akin to complaining that Motorola doesn’t support oranges. It may or may not be true, but it’s not apropos to the conversation.It’s not enough to look at the words, you have to look at the context in which they’re used to understand what they mean. Any confusion is either the result of the author of the article not being clear in his meaning, or the reader who either didn’t comprehend what was read or simply ignored it to interject a different issue into the conversation.In any case, Chris’ comment regarding bootloaders is not germane to the discussion. Bootloaders have nothing to do with apps chewing up excessive battery power.
Context is king.
Ironicly, MOTO is the only manufacturer that has a QWERTY phone on verizon……I guess im stuck
I <3 blur :-)
I just threw up in my mouth a little haha
You know, words of mouth is a powerful thing. If MOTO continues with its knuckle-headed attitude, people (I mean average consumers who don’t know anything about root or platform development…) WILL eventually buy less and less Moto phones. If we keep spreading the words, it will get to them.
You’re reading this Motorola?
I’ll continue to bad mouth about Moto until they change their attitude toward their products restriction. Never, I consider buying or suggesting anyone a Motorola phone. Period
“They’re appreciative and supportive of the dev community.” Moto’s PR department are, by far, the biggest bullshitters, and the worst at it. They’ve just said a few months ago, that if people wanted to root and use custom ROMs, they could go elsewhere, which was changed to “We will work with the development community in the future” a few days later (Is putting your foot in your mouth, then shoving it down your throat a job requirement for Jha and the PR department?). Okay, they’re supportive of the dev community? Cool! When they release the Bionic and the Droid 3, how about they don’t encrypt the bootloaders and give them out to Team Douche, et al. so they can hit the ground running with them and get some great custom ROMs running on them? It won’t happen, I don’t see Moto changing their bootloader policy, which is ashame, because the OG Droid was an awesome phone in its day, largely due to basically vanilla Android, a non-encrypted bootloader, and massive dev-community support. Do they actually think that anyone believes them? I sure don’t.
I love how Motorola is being all “Look we’ll add app-level battery monitoring stuff to PROVE it isn’t our fault!” when Android already has app-level battery monitoring stuff in it. Is that enabled on Motorola, and if so, what does it say about Blur (if anything)?
More bullshit lip-service…Unlock the damn bootloaders already, if you’re serious, Jha!
MotoBlur is by far the worst UI overlay. It’s like having herpes on your phone; And the locked bootloader is the realization that MotoBlur just like Genital Herpes is incurable.
MotoBlur is by far the worst UI Skin, it’s like herpes on your phone: And the locked bootloader is the realization that MotoBlur much like Genital Herpes is incurable.
MotoBlur is by far the worst UI Skin, it’s like herpes on your phone: And the locked bootloader is the realization that MotoBlur much like Genital Herpes is incurable.
Hurts when you step on your crank Sanjay? How about after the PR dept tap dances on it? At least they gave it a week to smoulder before they reminded us about it again. Some PR!
Even HTC admitted that Sense 3.0 is battery intensive. Even more so than the other versions. Why would Motoblur be any different?