Are all Motorola phones going to be vanilla or close to vanilla like the X?

[turbotooslow]

Hey guys, since the google/motorola thing just launched with the Moto X, does this mean all motorola phones will now be pretty much stock android, or will there still be Motoblur and **** on some of their phones?

 

[Ry]

Hey guys, since the google/motorola thing just launched with the Moto X, does this mean all motorola phones will now be pretty much stock android, or will there still be Motoblur and **** on some of their phones?

Pretty much "near stock" going forward.

(And they've been there since their implementation of ICS).

 

[akhi216]

Pretty much "near stock" going forward.

(And they've been there since their implementation of ICS).

This.

Sent from my Moto X via Android Central app

 

[thegrants82]

Nobody knows, but it would be nice.

 

[paul-c]

It's true, especially since Google is involved now. Part of me is going to miss Blur, though. I liked the way it looked in Gingerbread.

Sent from my Panasonic ELUGA

 

[anon(847090)]

Pretty much "near stock" going forward.

(And they've been there since their implementation of ICS).

This!!!

 

[grenefroggie]

It's true, especially since Google is involved now. Part of me is going to miss Blur, though. I liked the way it looked in Gingerbread.

Sent from my Panasonic ELUGA

I think you are the first person I have read to say that. Although on the Atrix 4G, I know a dev that was doing awesome things with Blur on GB!

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk 4

 

[akhi216]

I think you are the first person I have read to say that. Although on the Atrix 4G, I know a dev that was doing awesome things with Blur on GB!

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk 4

Gingerblur was the best Android skin I have used.

Sent from my Moto X via Android Central app

 

[anon(847090)]

It's true, especially since Google is involved now. Part of me is going to miss Blur, though. I liked the way it looked in Gingerbread.

Sent from my Panasonic ELUGA

gingerbread needed blur since the OS itself was ugly. from ICS forward the OS is polished and now looks better than blur/touchwiz

 

[roadkizzle]

I think you are the first person I have read to say that. Although on the Atrix 4G, I know a dev that was doing awesome things with Blur on GB!

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk 4

My first android phone was the Motorola Bravo when I transferred over from the iPhone 3G, and then my second was the Atrix 4G.

I spent a long time trying to decide between phones, and decided to go with the Moto's because I thought they had the best UI out of the manufacturers at the time. I have always hated the cartoonish-ness of Touchwiz, I also really disliked HTC's Sense at the time. I thought their rounded dock was the most difficult to use. I personally liked the shape and organization of Motoblur's phone, app tray, and contacts dock of Froyo.

I have never been much into social networking so I always refused to actually use any of Motoblurs additional features, which meant they did not slow down my phone nearly as much as Sense's bloat. The Bravo was actually a very slick running (at least it would have been with Trim) phone easily able to keep up with the Evo and Droid X at the time even though it only had a 3.7" screen.

 

[grenefroggie]

I didn't get in to using social apps until I had my Skyrocket. Blur wasn't slow per se, but as soon as I could figure out how to unlock the bootloader I went to custom ROMs and never turned back. I like to tinker. Even with root, there was only so much you could do at that time. Now, I would be happy just to have root on the Moto X. Since the BL is locked on ATT, I will just wait for the dev edition.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk 4

 

[NoYankees44]

Who knows. Maybe maybe not.

One thing is certain though. They probably didn't just fire all the software engineers that worked on blur and tell them all their work was inferior to Google's. I think they have moved to "stock" now and will probably start to slowly move away from stock as time goes on. Either visually or feature wise. They still have to differentiate themselves from everyone else if they want to be successful. As well as swap blow for blow with features. Gimmicky always on voice control won't always be enough

 

[hokiesteve]

Who knows. Maybe maybe not.

One thing is certain though. They probably didn't just fire all the software engineers that worked on blur and tell them all their work was inferior to Google's. I think they have moved to "stock" now and will probably start to slowly move away from stock as time goes on. Either visually or feature wise. They still have to differentiate themselves from everyone else if they want to be successful. As well as swap blow for blow with features. Gimmicky always on voice control won't always be enough

I'm pretty sure the software engineers don't drive general design and policy decisions. Ultimately, Google did fire some high-level Motorola people and put some of their own people into those positions and did away with Blur. I would imagine the only way they'll move away from stock android is if Google sells off Motorola. The way they are differentiating themselves is by going the stock route as the other manufacturers(LG, HTC, and Samsung) are all hung up on their own(and in my opinion inferior) skinned versions of Android.

 

[NoYankees44]

I'm pretty sure the software engineers don't drive general design and policy decisions. Ultimately, Google did fire some high-level Motorola people and put some of their own people into those positions and did away with Blur. I would imagine the only way they'll move away from stock android is if Google sells off Motorola. The way they are differentiating themselves is by going the stock route as the other manufacturers(LG, HTC, and Samsung) are all hung up on their own(and in my opinion inferior) skinned versions of Android.

The point(besides the fact that they have groups of code monkeys they need to retask) is that you can't advertise stock android. I mean I guess you could get up and talk about how it does less than everyone else's product, but that's not going to sell phones. I mean look at how they are advertising the X. They talk about customization, hands free control, and the fact that it is made in America. Nothing about it being the same as Google's nexus that no one has ever heard of. They can't keep the same novel and expect to be successful. They have to pack things into devices that they can sell to the public. Stock android might sound good to you and me, but the average person(aka the person moto is trying to sell to) sees nothing but something they don't understand and less stuff to attract them.

Moto is going to have to continue to add new and different software to differentiate themselves from the likes of Samsung and HTC and swap blow for blow on features. Anything in Stock android will also be used by their competitors thus not useful to them from an ad standpoint. They will have to augment android like everyone to have something to pitch and avoid bland featureless products that android in its base form kind of is.

 

[grenefroggie]

I think the selling point of the phone itself is how smooth the phone is. I have not used the latest version of Sense but I have used the GS4 and I own a GS3, TouchWiz, with all of its features, is slow and clunky. None of the features mean anything to me if the phone cannot operate smoothly. Features are nice, but all the horsepower under the hood is not used properly.

I love Android and find it far superior for my use than iOS. However, if I had to choose between a GS4 (keep in kind, I haven't used an HTC One) and an iPhone 5, I would sadly get the iPhone 5 because the user experience, again in my opinion, is nearly flawless in comparison.

I have faith as time goes on that Moto will get more features in Android, but I am willing to bet those features will be implemented once they are sure than can still make a phone that works smoothly to keep the overall user experience near flawless.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk 4

 

[hokiesteve]

The point(besides the fact that they have groups of code monkeys they need to retask) is that you can't advertise stock android. I mean I guess you could get up and talk about how it does less than everyone else's product, but that's not going to sell phones. I mean look at how they are advertising the X. They talk about customization, hands free control, and the fact that it is made in America. Nothing about it being the same as Google's nexus that no one has ever heard of. They can't keep the same novel and expect to be successful. They have to pack things into devices that they can sell to the public. Stock android might sound good to you and me, but the average person(aka the person moto is trying to sell to) sees nothing but something they don't understand and less stuff to attract them.

Moto is going to have to continue to add new and different software to differentiate themselves from the likes of Samsung and HTC and swap blow for blow on features. Anything in Stock android will also be used by their competitors thus not useful to them from an ad standpoint. They will have to augment android like everyone to have something to pitch and avoid bland featureless products that android in its base form kind of is.

I agree with grenefroggie. Moto's selling point is going to be a refined and smooth user experience. They are trying to achieve what Apple did years ago in regards to user experience. With Moto owned by Google now, they don't have as much of a need or drive to be that profitable. Ultimately, Google's primary business is selling advertising and Android has always been about achieving that goal in the mobile space. Motorola is yet another means to pursue ad revenue. As such, Motorola's competitors are no longer Samsung, HTC and LG. They are competing with Apple and MS/Nokia for market share.