Droid Turbo: Lollipop software update?

[tdizzel]

There's another hint at the "it's only us geeks, so it doesn't matter much" mentality we've discussed before.

If that in fact is true, then why the official announcement yesterday to clear up "A LOT of inaccurate information out there?" If it was really such a small and unimportant matter, they wouldn't have felt pressured (unless you believe the timing was just a coincidence...) to finally say something.

One of my biggest frustrations with online tech discussions is they seem to be as polarized as politics. In that regard, I think you guys who continue to underscore that it's only us geeks who care are underestimating the broad interest. No, it isn't widespread, or even a majority, but it's more than you think. I propose that yesterday shows us that.

David Schuster made that post on Google+. He has less than 5,000 followers. If it was really so important, why tell it to so few people? The reason is because it doesn't matter to very many people. Of course the tech sites will pick up on it and relay it to us tech geeks, but other than us apparently Moto doesn't believe many people care or it would have been posted somewhere with much more exposure.

Posted from my Droid Turbo, Kelly and Ozone

 

[bizzyqu]

*to be fair 5,000 people on Google + is a lot of people when you consider how many people are actually using Google +

 

[Rob_B]

Maybe the ones who "don't care" & have devices that function "perfectly" on 4.4.4 should refrain on insisting there is no problem and you shouldn't care if real deficiencies are addressed by the update to 5.1.

Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

 

[Aquila]

Maybe the ones who "don't care" & have devices that function "perfectly" on 4.4.4 should refrain on insisting there is no problem and you shouldn't care if real deficiencies are addressed by the update to 5.1.

Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

I don't see anyone saying that people here shouldn't care. The arguments are that most people don't care. Obviously most people would like an update. What I've seen is people asking for the hyperbole to be toned down and for some patience and rationality. When we look at the facts, they show that Motorola and Verizon are working on it, hit some road blocks and are still working. No deadlines have been missed and no promises have been broken.

It does indeed seem that most users don't know there is an issue at all, let alone think it is a crisis. Those here do know, and are frustrated. That's okay, it is understandable to be frustrated when something you want isn't happening - but the vitriol seen in some posts here seems to be something that logic can't account for. Neither Verizon nor Motorola screwed anyone over - it's simply taking longer for them to get things working to a level of satisfaction that they want for their customers. If they're not happy with 5.0 and remember the bad experience that Galaxy S5 customers had, maybe waiting and getting it right is the correct move. If you have to choose between sooner or better, do you always choose sooner? These companies have to find that balance and think of what will be a better experience for the most amount of users, not necessarily the most ardent users.

 

[bpe4]

With zero empirical evidence to back me up, I'd say the tech-heads who follow these forums and try to squeeze out the most out of their phones make up 5% of the Turbo owners. Everyone else merely sauntered into a VZW store and were asked what they were looking for, to which the they replied 'A phone with good battery life'. The pimple-faced sales associate shuffles them over to the Droid display and tells them about the fabulous price with 2yr contracts.

These folks are happy with their OS, most of which don't even know what version of OS it is. I have a friend here at work (and this is even an I.T. shop) who has a Droid Maxx that he's been using for about 1.5 yrs, and I noticed that everything on his home screen is identical to what it was straight out of the box. He added a few apps and that's it. And this guy works in I.T. Most people don't give a rip about the OS or about how much they can customize these phones. VZW knows that, so I'm quite certain they take the outrage on these forums with a grain of salt.

 

[KPMcClave]

David Schuster made that post on Google+. He has less than 5,000 followers. If it was really so important, why tell it to so few people? The reason is because it doesn't matter to very many people. Of course the tech sites will pick up on it and relay it to us tech geeks, but other than us apparently Moto doesn't believe many people care or it would have been posted somewhere with much more exposure.

Posted from my Droid Turbo, Kelly and Ozone

As I said, it's not even a majority that are paying attention, but it's more than you seem to think. That he felt compelled to post publicly at all, on that exact day, is the entire point. There was enough of a stir created to make him do something he hadn't (WRT the Turbo) for how many months?

That's certainly as valid, and I think even more so, than anecdotal references each of us have to our closed circles of family, co-workers and friends (what my circle knows or does not know isn't exactly a scientifically unbiased sample).

 

[KPMcClave]

*to be fair 5,000 people on Google + is a lot of people when you consider how many people are actually using Google +

Well, and there's that. Great point.

 

[KPMcClave]

I don't see anyone saying that people here shouldn't care. The arguments are that most people don't care. Obviously most people would like an update. What I've seen is people asking for the hyperbole to be toned down and for some patience and rationality. When we look at the facts, they show that Motorola and Verizon are working on it, hit some road blocks and are still working. No deadlines have been missed and no promises have been broken.

It does indeed seem that most users don't know there is an issue at all, let alone think it is a crisis. Those here do know, and are frustrated. That's okay, it is understandable to be frustrated when something you want isn't happening - but the vitriol seen in some posts here seems to be something that logic can't account for. Neither Verizon nor Motorola screwed anyone over - it's simply taking longer for them to get things working to a level of satisfaction that they want for their customers. If they're not happy with 5.0 and remember the bad experience that Galaxy S5 customers had, maybe waiting and getting it right is the correct move. If you have to choose between sooner or better, do you always choose sooner? These companies have to find that balance and think of what will be a better experience for the most amount of users, not necessarily the most ardent users.

Thanks for this. Mainly I'm looking for more "realistic" discussion, myself. You sum that up well. There's just too much hyperbole and exaggeration in a lot of "discussions." Everything turns in to an either/or argument...and words get put in to people's mouths that don't even come clsoe to expressing their actual opinions.

If you don't agree with me, so be it. I just want your disagreement to be with what I've actually said.

 

[tdizzel]

As I said, it's not even a majority that are paying attention, but it's more than you seem to think. That he felt compelled to post publicly at all, on that exact day, is the entire point. There was enough of a stir created to make him do something he hadn't (WRT the Turbo) for how many months?

That's certainly as valid, and I think even more so, than anecdotal references each of us have to our closed circles of family, co-workers and friends (what my circle knows or does not know isn't exactly a scientifically unbiased sample).

What do you mean "on that exact day"? He posted yesterday which is just as random as every other day we've gotten any kind of update. And why do you think it had been so long since the last time anyone official posted anything? It's because they know that most people don't care. But occasionally they choose to appease the vocal (vast) minority. A minority which is likely much much smaller than you seem to think. You're right, there was a stir. But that sir was among tech geeks. A tech writer made a post and tech sites picked up on it and commenters on those tech sites started talking about it. Notice what all those things had in common? All tech people.
Getting a comment on some random day lends no validity whatsoever to the notion that the general public cares. Especially given the comment was made on Google+.

Posted from my Droid Turbo, Kelly and Ozone

 

[tdizzel]

Well, and there's that. Great point.

Yes, there is that. And yes it is a great point. But the point is that Google+ is a relatively tiny platform. An update was given on a tiny platform because the amount of people that care about that update is also tiny.

Posted from my Droid Turbo, Kelly and Ozone

 

[rjw]

Not sure if anyone noticed that the Verizon changed their simulators to show screen shots of Lollipop for the Droid Turbo Droid Turbo by Motorola Simulator Support | Verizon Wireless.

 

[Aquila]

Not sure if anyone noticed that the Verizon changed their simulators to show screen shots of Lollipop for the Droid Turbo Droid Turbo by Motorola Simulator Support | Verizon Wireless.

It says "Last Modified: 6/11/2015 to Android 5.1" under the User Guide link.

 

[rjw]

It says "Last Modified: 6/11/2015 to Android 5.1" under the User Guide link.

I'd be surprised if we didn't get the update before the end of the month.

 

[GeodudeFFP]

*to be fair 5,000 people on Google + is a lot of people when you consider how many people are actually using Google +

No, it's a high PROPORTION of the sample population you're talking about, which is very different from "a lot of people". Let us tech-heads be technically correct when we discuss this information, people!

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[vzwuser76]

The response. *Something* happened yesterday to force them to comment.

Yes it did, the tech sites were reblogging the June 10 date to generate clicks, and some people were taking it as fact or unofficially official. When the day came those people posted angry comments in the comments sections of those sites. Rather than leaving people believe that Motorola screwed them over, he posted that people were taking rumors as the truth and decided to give us an official update on the matter. I'd say he was worried about all the tech sites spreading the misinformation. Nearly every tech site out there was running stories with the June 10th information. And on the 10th it was stirring up a lot of negative commentary, even though it was actually a smaller number of people posting a lot. Hell, look at what happened in just this thread. Before the June 10th date was announced, there was maybe about 2-5/posts a day average. After the date was announced, and especially from June 10th on, it's increased by about 5 times that amount. So rather than let it spiral out of control, he decided to try and quell the anger and set the record straight.

The reason I have said that this is a limited number of people is that out of the big Android OEMS, Motorola towards the bottom in terms of marketshare, then you limit it to a phone only available in the US, and then you limit it to a phone that is exclusive to only one carrier in the US. That's whittling the number of people down quite a bit, even if 100% of the Turbo owners were fully informed and impatient for the update. Say we're generous and cut that in half so that 50% of people were informed about the situation. So do you see where I'm coming from now? I also base this on my family, I've got about 40 people in mine (siblings, their spouses, and children, etc). Out of that there are about 15 who are into tech, and out of those 15 there's maybe three including myself that actually follow this enough to know about updates and such. I'm not saying that's going to be true for entire country, but I'd bet it's closer to my situation than to say half of the people are that invested. Now maybe 20-30 years from now, it'll be more like you say, but not at this point.

 

[Davidoo]

Yes it did, the tech sites were reblogging the June 10 date to generate clicks, and some people were taking it as fact or unofficially official. When the day came those people posted angry comments in the comments sections of those sites. Rather than leaving people believe that Motorola screwed them over, he posted that people were taking rumors as the truth and decided to give us an official update on the matter.

I would hardly call what he posted an update. Just the same useless info that tells us nothing. How long will it take to get from the lab to a soak? Now that would be an update. He might just as well have said "soon." I found it insulting. I would like to have a job with no deadlines or pressure to serve your customers. Not sure how this can go on for going on 8 months.

 

[vzwuser76]

I would hardly call what he posted an update. Just the same useless info that tells us nothing. How long will it take to get from the lab to a soak? Now that would be an update. He might just as well have said "soon." I found it insulting. I would like to have a job with no deadlines or pressure to serve your customers. Not sure how this can go on for going on 8 months.

So in other words, he's not giving us an update unless there's a timetable? Just because we dont know their deadline doesn't mean there isn't one, and as far as the pressure on them, I would say it's pretty significant. But I would say they also recognize that if they rush out a buggy update that it would make the situation 10 times worse. Any timetable they give is meaningless, because even if they wait until they believe it's ready to rollout, they still have Verizon to get past, and they don't even give us anything like what Motorola has in terms of keeping us in the loop. Ask a Verizon CSR for info and they'll most likely have nothing to say until the day they're pushing it. If they do give you anything, they most likely pulled it out of their rear in an effort to get you off the phone. The last issue I had with Verizon was with my Network Extender. They told me in early March that the update would go out middle of April. I called about it last week since I hadn't gotten it yet, and I was told they had no record of any such update. So would you rather they pull a timetable out of thin air and then repeatedly miss their mark, or do what they're doing now? I'd be a lot more angry if they constantly kept missing their date and pushing it back.

I've owned devices that took so long to get updates that I had already moved on to the next one before they got it, and I've never seen this level of frenzy over an update before. I'm talking about updates came a full year after it was released. And that wasn't that long ago either.

But like I've said before, Lollipop has been more problematic than any previous version of Android. The last 2 versions, Jellybean and KitKat were both built off of Ice Cream Sandwich. Lollipop is the first big overhaul since ICS, and even then it didn't change as much from Gingerbread as Lollipop changes from KitKat. The fact that the Nexus line is lagging behind as well proves that. My Nexus 7 didn't see LP until December, and didn't see 5.1 until a month after it was released, and that's a fully stock version. Motorola's version is close to stock but it's still modified.

The other OEMS that have updated to Lollipop pushed are on versions that were released 3-4 months prior. Android 5.1 was released in March, 3 months ago, and so far none of the other OEMS have a phone updated to it yet either. They're all still on a 5.0.x build, and the initial builds came out in October to December of 2014. The problem is by skipping those builds and going straight to 5.1, their release got pushed back further.

 

[TurboHope]

My guess is that Verizon has long determined that they sell smartphones mostly on features, sometimes on brand, but rarely on which specific version of the Android OS it is running. We know that they are actively working on the update. It will come when Verizon and Motorola think it's ready and are ready to support it.

I agree, went into T-Mobile last weekend and asked what version of lollipop a phone was on and he couldn't even answer. I know its a busy store, I bet I'm the first to ask this question.

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[TurboHope]

Why did Motorola post something? Have you been on Motorola's twitter or Instagram? People act as if Motorola said the 10th, and Motorola was trying to address all of the negative comments.

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[Davidoo]

So in other words, he's not giving us an update unless there's a timetable? Just because we dont know their deadline doesn't mean there isn't one, and as far as the pressure on them, I would say it's pretty significant.

That is definitely my feeling. What "update" were we actually provided? "It's not ready yet and we don't know when it will be" isn't updating anything. Funny how Microsoft used to be so much maligned and now they seem to be the stars because they are actually telling you when you will get an update. What a concept in customer service....letting people know what is happening. The mumbo jumbo and technical terms that don't really say anything like being in the "test lab" is extremely lame and insulting to customers who forked over 700 hard earned dollars for a flagship phone that is completely unsupported and all we are told is lies. A few weeks ago it "was with our partners" now it is in a lab. I call BS. There is something major wrong with the hardware or compatability. How about just being truthful. No way would they just let this go on and on if there weren't some major issue.