

Why the Razr isn't a Motorola-Google wonderphone - mrsebastian
http://www.extremetech.com/computing/104027-why-the-motorola-droid-razr-will-get-left-in-the-dust

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div
Custom skins layered on top of vanilla Android are such an antipattern it
hurts.

It sucks for device manufacturers because it is costly to build.

It sucks for consumers because the manufacturers have an incentive to drop
support for any device sold asap WRT software updates.

It sucks for developers because custom components are not standard across
devices.

The only point in favour of custom skins is that it theoretically allows
manufacturers to differentiate and as a result offers more choice to end
users.

In reality though, I suspect very few end users to pick their Android based on
the custom skin it comes with, and I'm sure many would be pissed if they
realized that custom skin is the reason for them not getting free ota upgrades
to something they gave a nice chunk of cash for.

~~~
cageface
In a functional open-source ecosystem third parties would be pushing their
innovations and enhancements back upstream for the benefit of everyone.
Instead it's just a bunch of downstream, second-rate UI hacks that are
different just for the sake of being different.

I think it's crucial that the mobile OS ecosystem is not dominated by any
single player, but I find myself in the extremely unexpected and awkward
position of rooting for Windows Phone.

~~~
funkah
I basically feel the same way, but I used WP7 at SxSW this year and it was a
very disappointing experience. Even the apps that they were demoing to show
how great WP7 is crashed with ugly "NullReferenceException" dialog boxes.
(Crashing is one thing, but it's no help to the user to barf up a stack trace,
however beautifully that stack trace may be formatted.) The Zagat app was one
of the ones they were flogging, and it was pretty much unusable.

~~~
bunderbunder
OK yes the handling of that error message is terrible in that special way that
only Microsoft can be terrible at handling error messages. . .

But apps crashing with NullReferenceExceptions? WTF!? Sounds like Microsoft
needs to start a program where each major app developer gets a personal visit
from a Microsoft representative armed with a free copy of ReSharper and a
long, baleful stare.

------
saturdaysaint
On top of all this, the hyper-masculine Droid branding/styling is out of step
with the market and even with where Google is going with ICS - emphasizing
manliness is about as gauche as the mostly abandoned tactic of marketing
gadgets specifically for women. It was at least _some_ kind of hook in the
days when the Droid had little competition, but next to a modern Samsung, it
looks outdated.

~~~
eavc
It was the right move for the first Droid phone, but I agree that the time has
passed.

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TimGebhardt
Amen to this article. I know all to well as a former Motorola Cliq customer
how badly Motoblur makes your phone feel like the neglected stepchild of the
Android ecosystem.

It launched with a heavily modified 1.5 version of Android (with a bunch of
1.6 functionality backported). This was at a time when Android 2.1 had been
out for a while (edit: mid-November 2009). I remember asking the T-Mobile
saleperson if there were plans to get 2.1 on the phone. He assured me he knew
people beta testing it for release probably next quarter.

14 months later Moto released a buggy-as-all-heck version of 2.1 for the Cliq.
Never followed up with a bug release that fixed all the instabilities of the
phone.

Sadly the Cyanogenmod community started to care about the Cliq only a few
months before I bought a Galaxy S2.

I just can't trust Moto to keep up at all. Fool me once and all...

------
keithg
There is nothing insightful in this article. The same comments are repeated ad
nauseaum in the Android fan sights' article comments.

If you ran up to someone in a Verizon store and tried to convince them not to
buy the Razr because it won't have ICS until February, they would laugh in
your face.

------
drivebyacct2
Who thought this was going to be? The purchase hasn't gone through, and even
then, best estimates for any sort of closer working relationship was very late
2012 or 2013. Besides, locked bootloader, Blur? There was never any doubt that
this was another typical Moto/HTC release. I bet it won't see ICS for a few
months too.

