Official Support My Moto Campaign Thread

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Filed on : October 4 2012

Filed by :
[my name]
[my name]@gmail.com
[my city/state/zip]

Filed against :
Motorola, Inc.

Complaint Description:
I bought a Motorola Electrify from US Cellular in February, 2012 (as did my wife). We chose it over a competing product, the HTC Hero S, because it was US Cellular's most powerful phone, and we were led to believe that it (actually both phones) would definitely be upgraded to Android 4 (ICS) in the near future. The HTC device, despitre being a weaker phone, was upgraded over the summer. Motorola said the Electrify and Photon (the same phone on Sprint)) would be upgraded in Q3 2012. At the end of Q3 2012, they said Q4. Last week, they changed their minds and said the phone would not be upgraded. They also sent out an over-the-air (OTA) update that prevented the phone from having its bootloader unlocked. I had performed the procedure, and am now running ICS. My wife is still running Gingerbread; she hasn't changed a thing actually. Motorola says their phone cannot adequately support ICS. I say this is a flat-out lie. My phone typically gets twice the battery life my wife's does. I enjoy more features. The only catch is, because it's unofficial, the camera doesn't work. (I can flash back to a Gingerbread ROM for camera functionality; the hardware is not damaged.)

Your Desired Resolution:
Ultimately I want Motorola to support their phones! I actually understand their position -- they want to load ICS down with malware to track the customer, in the name of customer service. I even concede that this is beneficial to 90% of their customers. I want three things, the first being that Android 4 (ICS) be made available as a choice. If it has to be ICS from AOSP (Android Open Source Project, the software repository they base their operating system on), so be it. But again I know this is unlikely. Second, offer a bootloader unlock to those who want it, via Motorola.com. Those who don't explicitly want it need never know about it. They can even void the warranty; we've seen how they service their customers and we don't want that. Third, release the source code for the drivers so that volunteer developers like Jokersax11 and Th3Bill can build us a version of Ice Cream Sandwich and even its successor, Jelly Bean, without issues. Again, some of us already have this, and it outperforms the operating system that comes with the phone in every area except camera.​

Mr. Newton, thank you for asking for Motorola users to share their thoughts regarding Motorola's refusal to upgrade their 2011 flagship devices. If I've been misinformed or you've heard all you need, please disregard this correspondence with my apologies. If not, read on. I'm known for writing at length, but I will try to keep it short and to the point.

A short bit about myself with regard to tech and Motorola. My father was an engineer, so I've literally been using computers my whole life (I was born in 1979). Atari (computers), Commodore-Amiga, Apple, IBM, IBM-compatible, and the last few PCs which I've built myself. I'm not specifically loyal to anyone (Mac or PC, Android or iPhone, etc.). I use what works for me. I'm a gamer, so Windows it is. I like to tinker, so Android it is. The others are fine for those they're targeted to. I'm on my third Motorola phone, and I prefer them for their high standards of hardware quality, their battery life, and their signal strength. My first cell phone was a Motorola v120. My fourth phone was a Motorola ROKR slider. My second and third were not Motorola either because they weren't an option, or to save money (which led to regret). My fifth cell phone and first smartphone was a Samsung, but only because I got the very first Android device my carrier, US Cellular offered. It was junk. Look up the Samsung Acclaim and have a laugh. 160MB RAM. What a joke. So for my second smartphone, I wanted the best. I got my carrier's best phone. The Motorola Electrify boasted a 1GHz dual-core processor powered by nVidia (I guess it's NVIDIA now), 1GB of RAM, and a 4.3" screen. It was between that and an HTC Hero S, which had a single-core 1.2GHz processor, 768MB RAM, and a 4" screen. I think I made the right choice, and since my wife doesn't know much about tech, she just got what I got.

I won't lie -- the Electrify is an amazing little device. It's more powerful than my first five computers (not including family computers -- I personally had two Amigas, an IBM PS/2, a Pentium 200MHz, a Celeron 600MHz, and a Pentium 3 1.2GHz, but only with 512MB RAM). I realize comparing mobiles to desktops is like apples and oranges, but the thing was, and is impressive. US Cellular assured us that both the Electrify and the Hero S would be upgraded to ICS for sure, because they're both these amazingly powerful smartphones.

I rooted mine shortly after I got it, and began to make the most of Gingerbread, which I had never used before. Three months later, I unlocked the bootloader and installed Ice Cream Sandwich via CyanogenMod 9. My wife was unimpressed and did not want her phone unlocked, or even rooted. She didn't even change the launcher. It's much more computer than she needs, so she has no reason to change. Plus, the loss of the camera due to the CM9 developer not having access to Motorola's source code sealed it for her. She loves the camera on her phone and considers it a vital part of the device. Two months after that, I was running Jelly Bean, a day shy of a month after Google announced it, and before the update rolled out to one or more of the Nexus phones (Verizon's, I believe). I go back and forth and even ran Gingerbread (CyanogenMod 7) for a while. I've even gone back to the stock ROM, updated everything, set it up nicely, and double checked the battery life. Because I've left out an important part of this story: On ICS, the battery life is more than doubled.

Let me qualify that last statement a bit. CyanogenMod 9 (and 10) come with a custom kernel that overclocks the CPU to 1.3GHz. This is done by providing extra power to the CPU to make it run faster. This should cost me precious battery life. I'm also running Android 4, which consumes more system resources than Android 2. However, running Paranoid Android 1.1 (which also puts the phone into a kind of weird hybrid tablet mode that should be even more demanding), I can get 18-20 hours on a single charge. My wife is lucky to get through an 8-hour shift without her battery dying on her. On Jelly Bean, I've gotten up to 12 hours, and that's getting down to the low battery warning at 15%, not dying at 2-4%. So, in short, not only does ICS run on our phones, it runs better than Gingerbread did. And the reason Motorola is giving is that ICS does not perform to standards. Well, if ICS is below their standards, where does Gingerbread stand? Yet that is what they are sticking people with? That does not compute. They are also locking the bootloaders down tight, which has no effect on people like my wife (for her it's just a waste of time, it adds no new features) but prevents people like me (had I not already unlocked) from getting the most out of my phone. And that is really what bothers me. This device is capable of so much more than Motorola is allowing.

Motorola's amnesty program is a joke. If you give them your phone, they will give you a $100 rebate on one of their new Verizon-exclusive phones. That right there is a problem because Verizon does not offer cell service where I live. But even if they did, I have a good phone. I can probably flip it for at least $150 on eBay or Craigslist. The Samsung Mesmerize, an older and far lesser powered phone, has been flipped for $180. I would be offering a steal at $150 for mine. Plus it has a $50 case, the Otterbox Defender, on it. Take half of that, add it, $175, great deal for a contract-free phone, and I can offer it with CyanogenMod 7, 9, or 10, or the stock ROM. And then I can put that toward a Samsung or HTC phone. Speaking of HTC, that weaker HTC phone I decided against? It got ICS back in the summer.

All in all, I feel like Motorola is abandoning their loyal fans and customers by trying to push them to Verizon and their latest phone. But if I switch to Verizon, get locked into a 2-year contract, and can't use my phone at home, is Motorola going to support that phone? I strongly suspect not. They aren't supporting the phone that is otherwise perfect for me. I see these new phones as a lesser upgrade, as opposed to something like the Samsung Galaxy S3 or the Samsung Galaxy Note 2. In fact, when I'm due up for an upgrade next August, I'm leaning toward the successor to the Note 2. (Note 3?)

Well, I guess I didn't keep this very short, but I don't think I strayed too far from the point. If you've read this, thank you. If you can use it somehow, thank you again. And thank you a third time for listening to us.​