Don't Bother Checking for ICS it is NOT ready

[anon(94115)]

 

[bradenfontaine]

Sent from my Razr Maxx dripping ICS all over the floor

 

[leroybrute]

The ABA ( American Bleach Association ) does not condone bleaching or laundering money.

I don't care what kind of phone you use, that's not how I judge someone's worth or intelligence. Sent using tapatalk 2.

Got ya there. I'm not a member of the ABA so no real penalty. My momma didn't condone me drinking in high-school , but what momma doesn't know...
Just don't tell the FBI. lol

 

[rbess1965]

I have to agree while the wait sucks. I'd rather have a build that works perfectly. The battery life alone on this phone makes it worth the wait

Battery life is my main concern with it right now. I do have a couple others at the moment too but here is a screen shot for ya. This is with very light use. I normally would be just under 90 right now.

Sent using Droid Razr Maxx

 

[robertGregory]

So people are getting the ICS update for razr (maxx) - I got mine, and it definately needs work. Is it stable for the most part, well that's TBD.

They need to:

1. Remove a prompt in the phone dialer - which suggests to the user to type the name of a contact yet no text area exists to pop the keyboard - basically it's misleading you to believe that you can access contacts right from the phone dialer - the answer is tap the left most hard key at the bottom of the phone which will prompt you to search for contacts... They need to clean this up - more intuitive.

2. If you do an OTA and have an exchange account setup you may lose the ability to maintain your push option - and you may not have all the options that ICS truly brings to corporate email (which are more than GB). You will know there is a problem if you had an exchange account setup prior to the OTA update and afterwards the syncing for that account cannot be made active. Fix: remove the account and re-add it. You will then have syncing ability and more corporate email options...

3. The overall intuitiveness of ICS - just a few days working it, needs to be understood, if you have worked GB then ICS is a bit removed from it... Google changed everything around virtually. Of course, and this is a slap on Google / Android, they have to consider the user's when making a product - not the developer. I say this because I am a developer and it is not a good habit / practice to change everything up. People want continuity over bling (new features). They should plan to change just a couple features each release not the entire feature set.

Personally, and I do not know who's with me on this, but although I agree that android is way more advanced as a featureset than apple, the android OS is really in it's infancy moving into it's childhood - I'm saying it's not mature. I am looking at android as a giant science experiment - when all I want to do is operate a phone. That is where apple has it over android IMHO, simply because on iphone everything just works - there is something to be said for that...

I'd rather see google focus on maturing their core OS than adding neat features. I am almost ready to give up 4g and the maxx for an iphone, why?

1. I know if I turned on the iphone the next day it would simply work. The android experience is simply unpredictable.

I feel sorry for apple users though, as they are slowly exposed to tiny tid-bits of features -and they somewhat feel wowed each time they get a new phone, cause they were just handed a few more pixels, 300mhz higher in core, and a program they can converse with - siri, when we have had vlingo and a few other apps that did the same etc. Yet, their phones work - and they do not look the other way (anywhere else) for technology, they trust apple.

Sorry for the rant, but this phone thing is a game only, and the carriers are draining money out of our pockets faster than hones go through battery cycles.

at least google could improve the overall quality of their products...

one more thought...

one of the writers on this forum seem slanted towards conformity and a slave to the carrier's ways. He seems to slap users around a bit for being adventurous (rooters) or people who want to pimp their phone experience. I have a few words for him - not bad words, just some thoughts...

I have rooted my phone, to gain control over carrier marketing tactics and to protect myself against collateral data usage from unremovable applications...

1. I do not like the fact that carriers lock down apps that eat our data packages behind the scenes. And to most of us, unknowingly. Most of my friends only have 2gb data packages and cannot seem to make sense why from day to day they go through data when they only consume 50 - 100 k in email yet megs are missing (consumed) on a daily basis. But when Google Play constantly primes for updates and is defaulted to download those updates over our data plans - that is pure theft, not a buyer beware issue...

Note: yes there are controls and features which will help suppress data usage, but there are a family of applications which are frozen / locked and cannot be deleted (netflix, nfl football, etc) which are more often than not running in the backgroud jockying anonymous user information or checking for updates etc. They cannot be removed or truly prevented from running in the background. we have bee forced to babysit our phones for power and collateral data consumtion - yet cannot be uninstalled.

"Rooting takes care of that." So, if you want to tell users that they are busting their warranties or going against contracts etc thats cool, I can see the right thing to do in that set of statements - it's all good, yet where is the fight against the carriers who seem to beat us into a state of acceptableness with respect to using part of our data plans for their marketing purposes. I mean consider the following:

Comcast charges 46.00 a month for all-you-can-download (almost) data. by almost I mean they do have a 256gb limit for that price. Now, carriers typically charge now 15 for a single GB, but even at 20 for 2gb, do the math, effectively we are paying 128x the price vs cable... That is insane.

and our phone data is not even federally regulated for QA on measuring accurate quantity.

it would be a percentage of people who might tell me that I do not have to buy a phone plan, that is true, however it does not change the fact that carriers are commiting theft by deception and have contracts that really state we have no recourse...

that is all.

 

[robertGregory]

And one final comment in defense of rooting in relation to phone instability...

rooting by it's nature just gives you permissions - permissions to do virtually everything - yes, up to the point of destroying your phone. I am ware of that - clearly.

But rooting afforded me to freeze an app from running and / or removing the application period. That's it.

if an application's removal (with the exception of core applications "truly" meant to make the phone be a phone and make the internet experience happen) causes the phone's instability it is a fault of design - at the hands of "apparently" some of the most intelligent developers on the planet, and not the consumer who removed the application.

If my removal of netflix etc makes a phone unstable (unusable) or non-upgradable or busts warranty then there is a real problem on the side of the developers, carriers, and our whole institutioin of what we think is acceptable or defined as a quality product...

 

[B. Diddy]

Battery life is my main concern with it right now. I do have a couple others at the moment too but here is a screen shot for ya. This is with very light use. I normally would be just under 90 right now. Click to view quoted image


Sent using Droid Razr Maxx

Battery life for me took a hit immediately after the update, but has since returned to normal after 3-4 charge cycles. Not sure if it just readjusted on its own, or if anything I did helped. I tried doing a full charge while powered off, as well as clearing the system cache partition as follows:

1. Turn the phone off
2. Press and hold the power button and that vol up AND vol down keys all at the same time untill it loads into the screen where you can select "recovery"
3. Use the vol down key to highlight "recovery" then use the vol up key to select it
4. Wait for it to boot up (not pressing anything) untill you see an Android and a ! Inside of a triangle.
5. Once that screen appears, press the vol up and vol down key at the same time
6. It should load the recovery menu, press the vol down key to get down to "wipe cache" then use the power key to select it
7. When it is done, go to "reboot system now" and select it with the power key.

You could either try these things or just wait a few charge cycles to see if things settle in.

 

[rbess1965]

So people are getting the ICS update for razr (maxx) - I got mine, and it definately needs work. Is it stable for the most part, well that's TBD.

They need to:

1. Remove a prompt in the phone dialer - which suggests to the user to type the name of a contact yet no text area exists to pop the keyboard - basically it's misleading you to believe that you can access contacts right from the phone dialer - the answer is tap the left most hard key at the bottom of the phone which will prompt you to search for contacts... They need to clean this up - more intuitive.

2. If you do an OTA and have an exchange account setup you may lose the ability to maintain your push option - and you may not have all the options that ICS truly brings to corporate email (which are more than GB). You will know there is a problem if you had an exchange account setup prior to the OTA update and afterwards the syncing for that account cannot be made active. Fix: remove the account and re-add it. You will then have syncing ability and more corporate email options...

3. The overall intuitiveness of ICS - just a few days working it, needs to be understood, if you have worked GB then ICS is a bit removed from it... Google changed everything around virtually. Of course, and this is a slap on Google / Android, they have to consider the user's when making a product - not the developer. I say this because I am a developer and it is not a good habit / practice to change everything up. People want continuity over bling (new features). They should plan to change just a couple features each release not the entire feature set.

Personally, and I do not know who's with me on this, but although I agree that android is way more advanced as a featureset than apple, the android OS is really in it's infancy moving into it's childhood - I'm saying it's not mature. I am looking at android as a giant science experiment - when all I want to do is operate a phone. That is where apple has it over android IMHO, simply because on iphone everything just works - there is something to be said for that...

I'd rather see google focus on maturing their core OS than adding neat features. I am almost ready to give up 4g and the maxx for an iphone, why?

1. I know if I turned on the iphone the next day it would simply work. The android experience is simply unpredictable.

I feel sorry for apple users though, as they are slowly exposed to tiny tid-bits of features -and they somewhat feel wowed each time they get a new phone, cause they were just handed a few more pixels, 300mhz higher in core, and a program they can converse with - siri, when we have had vlingo and a few other apps that did the same etc. Yet, their phones work - and they do not look the other way (anywhere else) for technology, they trust apple.

Sorry for the rant, but this phone thing is a game only, and the carriers are draining money out of our pockets faster than hones go through battery cycles.

at least google could improve the overall quality of their products...

one more thought...

one of the writers on this forum seem slanted towards conformity and a slave to the carrier's ways. He seems to slap users around a bit for being adventurous (rooters) or people who want to pimp their phone experience. I have a few words for him - not bad words, just some thoughts...

I have rooted my phone, to gain control over carrier marketing tactics and to protect myself against collateral data usage from unremovable applications...

1. I do not like the fact that carriers lock down apps that eat our data packages behind the scenes. And to most of us, unknowingly. Most of my friends only have 2gb data packages and cannot seem to make sense why from day to day they go through data when they only consume 50 - 100 k in email yet megs are missing (consumed) on a daily basis. But when Google Play constantly primes for updates and is defaulted to download those updates over our data plans - that is pure theft, not a buyer beware issue...

Note: yes there are controls and features which will help suppress data usage, but there are a family of applications which are frozen / locked and cannot be deleted (netflix, nfl football, etc) which are more often than not running in the backgroud jockying anonymous user information or checking for updates etc. They cannot be removed or truly prevented from running in the background. we have bee forced to babysit our phones for power and collateral data consumtion - yet cannot be uninstalled.

"Rooting takes care of that." So, if you want to tell users that they are busting their warranties or going against contracts etc thats cool, I can see the right thing to do in that set of statements - it's all good, yet where is the fight against the carriers who seem to beat us into a state of acceptableness with respect to using part of our data plans for their marketing purposes. I mean consider the following:

Comcast charges 46.00 a month for all-you-can-download (almost) data. by almost I mean they do have a 256gb limit for that price. Now, carriers typically charge now 15 for a single GB, but even at 20 for 2gb, do the math, effectively we are paying 128x the price vs cable... That is insane.

and our phone data is not even federally regulated for QA on measuring accurate quantity.

it would be a percentage of people who might tell me that I do not have to buy a phone plan, that is true, however it does not change the fact that carriers are commiting theft by deception and have contracts that really state we have no recourse...

that is all.

The first half of this is an excellent assessment of the situation. I don't root so won't be commenting on that part. New features are cool but come with a price and I'm concerned that the price may be the one thing that made this phone awesome. 'Reliability'. Things don't feel as stable right now and keeping fingers crossed that they get this right. Feeling a little like I'm back on my old Samsung Charge and that's not a good thing. Battery has taken a hit. Just like the Nexus S users with their roll out. processing & transitions are more sluggish. I must admit I'm still running Go Launcher but that shouldn't matter because this phone has been running that beautifully since March and it should be able to handle it if i want it to. I will try Nova out, if long term, i find Go Launcher wont play nice with ics. Gmail is acting strange. Can't sync Google contacts, can't pinch to zoom on the message in Gmail. Things like that. Although the new appearance is nice, I can't say I'm a fan of the pull down status bar. Things are not as easy to identify to me which slows me down. So like this poster said I just want my phone to run smooth, just like it was. Right now I don't feel that way. Hoping it smooths out and you guys have better initial experiences. If it doesn't, then Google can freaking keep ics on Samsung and put me back on GB.

Sent using Droid Razr Maxx

 

[B. Diddy]

They need to:

1. Remove a prompt in the phone dialer - which suggests to the user to type the name of a contact yet no text area exists to pop the keyboard - basically it's misleading you to believe that you can access contacts right from the phone dialer - the answer is tap the left most hard key at the bottom of the phone which will prompt you to search for contacts... They need to clean this up - more intuitive.

Thanks for the post--interesting points. It's true that the dialer seems a little clunkier at first, since they removed the Contacts selection. But just as with Blackberry, you can simply start inputting a phone number OR a name using the phone keypad, and the dialer will bring up the most likely match, along with other potential matches. I can't remember if this was a feature with Gingerbread, but overall, I think this meets my needs.

 

[rbess1965]

Battery life for me took a hit immediately after the update, but has since returned to normal after 3-4 charge cycles. Not sure if it just readjusted on its own, or if anything I did helped. I tried doing a full charge while powered off, as well as clearing the system cache partition as follows:

1. Turn the phone off
2. Press and hold the power button and that vol up AND vol down keys all at the same time untill it loads into the screen where you can select "recovery"
3. Use the vol down key to highlight "recovery" then use the vol up key to select it
4. Wait for it to boot up (not pressing anything) untill you see an Android and a ! Inside of a triangle.
5. Once that screen appears, press the vol up and vol down key at the same time
6. It should load the recovery menu, press the vol down key to get down to "wipe cache" then use the power key to select it
7. When it is done, go to "reboot system now" and select it with the power key.

You could either try these things or just wait a few charge cycles to see if things settle in.

Yep. I did that too. Twice for good measure At first I thought it could be because I was playing with it more but tonight I didn't use hardly any and dropped to 70%. That's just not cool for this phone. Going on 8hrs as I type this and just above 60%. I use a battery app that only reads in 10% increments like the Kernel. Anyway, hope it gets better. Not thrilled that they took away my ability to auto end apps in a task manager. I do like the new ability to disable and delete things I couldn't before though Can't wait for more people to have it so we can work all these issue out. Love this phone and want it to remain good for us.

Sent using Droid Razr Maxx

 

[PeninaD]

Then explain how all these people are getting the ICS update sent to their devices??

Soak testing?

 

[Eclipse2K]

Thanks for the post--interesting points. It's true that the dialer seems a little clunkier at first, since they removed the Contacts selection. But just as with Blackberry, you can simply start inputting a phone number OR a name using the phone keypad, and the dialer will bring up the most likely match, along with other potential matches. I can't remember if this was a feature with Gingerbread, but overall, I think this meets my needs.

Gingerbread also had this feature.

Sent from my DROID RAZR MAXX using Android Central Forums.

 

[Eclipse2K]

Soak testing?

Soak testing has already ended. Before you ask how I know this... Motorola has sent all of us soak testers an email stating that its over.

Sent from my DROID RAZR MAXX using Android Central Forums.

 

[fatboy97]

Soak testing has already ended. Before you ask how I know this... Motorola has sent all of us soak testers an email stating that its over.

Sent from my DROID RAZR MAXX using Android Central Forums.

+1... I received the same email yesterday morning.

 

[jroc]

Put it like this...if it isnt ready.....they just volunteered many ppl to be soak testers...without them knowing it.

 

[d.meyer]

When I hit the system update button it actually searches now! It ran all night, of course it didn't find any thing!

Droid razor maxx of the near future

 

[kingmeow]

Robert Gregory, excellent post! Very well written and independent of whether one agrees with everything or not. Certainly it makes people think!

 

[CW]

So people are getting the ICS update for razr (maxx) - I got mine, and it definately needs work. Is it stable for the most part, well that's TBD.

They need to:

1. Remove a prompt in the phone dialer - which suggests to the user to type the name of a contact yet no text area exists to pop the keyboard - basically it's misleading you to believe that you can access contacts right from the phone dialer - the answer is tap the left most hard key at the bottom of the phone which will prompt you to search for contacts... They need to clean this up - more intuitive.

This was a welcome feature for me. This was one of the knocks some of my less sophisticated user friends had. They would say that they just want to dial but in the old version the dialer retained the last screen used i.e. contacts, recent calls, etc. and in those screens you couldn't just enter a number.

I didn't mind it so much but a few weeks ago I needed to make a 911 call my phone was in contacts screen and those couple extra presses in an emergency situation were difficult. An iPhone user was at the scene and beat me to the call.

I think this was a good idea on Google's part to make the dialer just the dialer plus have it accessible from the lock screen. Hopefully I never have to make a call in an emergency again but if I do this will be much easier. Swipe down, Dial, Tap send.

Also, I have to dissagree with you that this is a such a big change that people, even those less advanced users, won't be able to figure it out. Atleast I haven't seen anything that is too hard to figure out.

 

[robertGregory]

I like the fact that I can just dial too - it's cool, simple, yet the prompt "type to search" is misleading, makes me part of the "ok, what am I doing wrong crowd" - almost think it's an android humor... kinda like the pc's which "require" a keyboard plugged into it yet stop in the bios screen with a message "Keyboard failure or not present, press F1 to continue..."

oh boy

 

[robertGregory]

But seriously folks. I'm sure any one of us can list downfalls, bugs, likes and dislikes to no end.

A big joke as far back as I can remember, was that most of us - when buying windows - we're Microsoft beta testers and we even paid for it etc... That has some truth to it today...

Of course Windows has become so much nicer. and stable, most of us stayed on XP, skipped over vista, and went to 7, which I have to say is the most rubust / reliable windows of all - even over XP. XP took years to stabilize and Microsoft did it in a very short period of time with Windows 7. And although I just read a thread / article about upcoming Google / android initiatives - where the sentiment was "WOW! the other operating systems won't hold a candle to what Google / Android have in store for us..." Well, I can say the same about Microsoft's upcoming Windows 8.

In all fairness before I comment on it with IMHO du jour. I tried the beta of Windows 8 when it came out - and to boot, I have a very funny story about Windows 8 and AT&T strangely, but I won't iterate on that at the moment - unless someone out there is curious enough to hear the funny story... Anyway, I hated Windows 8, thought it was going to be a shoddy silly overlay to Windows 7 in a desperate attempt by Microsoft to stay afloat and dig their claws back into the mobile market. I was wrong....

I downloaded the Release Preview of Windows 8 and I am of the firm belief that this OS will take the desktop, tablet, and mobile (maybe) markets by storm. So I say the same set of comments about Windows 8 that some say about Google's / Android's future.

So, what does this have to do with ICS not being ready? well, here it goes.

Most new soft technology these days - comes broken out of the box. Ideally, as a consumer, we want what is "the latest thing", and we want it to work. But that is not "always" the case. In a previous post I jousted Google pretty hard - calling android a big science experiement... am I right, well, some may agree, ans some would not. It's all what you are comfortable with - and willing to accept I guess...

The issues I have, as a consumer, is getting caught in the crossfire of corporate marketing tug-o-war, in my current case Motorola (razr maxx), Google (GB / ICS), and Verizon. Which by the way, Verizon now will allow you to tether for free (it's included in your data plans now).

Here I am, the consumer, just signed a two year, and coming to realize that I will be spending 199.00 (phone), + 135 / month for my plan. That to me is outrageous for what I get. Even if I trimmed down my plan to 80 / month, it is still insane...

Now, I am a former AT&T prisoner recently extradited to the Verizon DOC (Department of connections), and somewhat experiencing the same treatment from Verizon - with a few exceptions...

But here is what I have.

I have an expensive phone - claiming to be one of the best, yet the OS does not work the same way day to day, the apps do not work the same from day to day. It's not that bad, but when I start a program day after day (in this case I will refer to Motocast) I would experct to get the same results, and it just does not happen. I am using one app as an example out of 10 apps that show the same instability...

And I am paying a lot of money for it...

So, the question is, and probably better suited for another forum, are the dollars spent for products and services equally matched. This forum topic suggests we are not.

Thoughts?