I can relate to what you are saying, you are frustrated with the device, the problem is the manufacturer didn't design it just for you. If at least half of the market was concerned and complaining about these features, they would implement the changes in their next design.
At least half the market has noticed that this was dumb omission. In at least half the reviews if not more this is mentioned. Go to the Motorola forums and you'll see the complaints too. Just because sheep will accept their fate doesn't mean I have to go away happily. It's a phone. It's supposed to be able to pull up the phone easily. When 90+% of phones can do this but your super advanced Droid doesn't, that's a problem. I'm determined to find a solution and am dumbfounded it's this difficult. How about trying to sync this phone with Outlook? Jeeez...
It might be nice to have a dedicated button to swap back and forth, but it doesn't impede my ability to function with the phone nor does it seem to be a factor for most people who purchase this phone. I don't want to sound like a broken record, but you were aware of the design to start with.
Swapping calls is a feature. Launching the phone application to start a call is the most basic function of a phone. I had no idea there was no button nor that you couldn't assign a button. Virtually every phone I had made this process easy.
Did you consider they designed it that way on purpose? I think a major part of this design, and this is just circumspect on my own part, is to prevent people from attempting to access these feature while driving.
To the first question, no, especially not sober. To the second question, not a chance. You're kidding right? People will dial when in the car, they will just look at their phones and do it.
I'm not being a fanboy or an iPhone hater, I just think the phone was designed exactly how they wanted it to be and if they find consumers aren't happy with it on a majority basis, they will make a change in the future.
In big companies, 3 things usually happen that explain this kind of mindless nincompoopery:
(1) Some incompetent idiot(s) is in charge of a department which he should not be. He's been at the company too long, the company is afraid to fire him lest he file a discrimination lawsuit, etc. Regardless, he's an incompetent who is paying attention to the wrong things. It's possible Moto has plenty of people who can create cool flip Razors but haven't much of an R&D department when it comes to smartphones.
(2) They rushed the phone to market and never adequately used a test group to determine the viability of phone use. Combined with number 1, this provides some explanation.
(3) Greed. Like many companies, they will design a phone with a minor flaw that will annoy consumers enough but not make the product completely unusable so that they will feel compelled to buy a second phone they really never needed to buy if the company was honest in bringing its products to market in the first place.
Complaining to us isn't going to change what they did. You need to address your concerns to the proper people. I would suggest getting some sort of petition together to forward to the company stating your point of view and explaining to them why you think it was bad design.
My 9 year old niece understands why this was a serious design defect. If this needs explanation, then people at Motorola need to be fired. You're kidding about the petition, right? Maybe we can organize a group of people to picket at Motorola... and what's that going to get us? "Yes, you were right... you can buy a new phone at full retail price in 4 months."
You can't justly say to us, "Hey these are major design flaws". The phone was shipped how they designed it, so this must be the way they intended for it to work. If that wasn't their ultimate intent, they were obviously pleased enough with it to let it go to market.
I can say whatever I want. This is a huge goof. If they intended the phone to work this way then they might as well bend over and let HTC give them what's comin' to them.
As with any major purchase I researched the product and was aware of it's features. The list of short comings was small because I bought it so early on, but I was prepared and aware of the major problems and I chose to purchase the Droid in spite of these short comings because I was okay with that trade off. If this was a dealer breaker you should have more thoroughly considered your options.
You're a genius and a seer. I usually don't research what is so obvious it doesn't usually need to be researched. But that's not the issue. I have to be on the Verizon network and this is the ONLY phone (except for the Palm, which will be done by 2011) which has a touchscreen and hardware keyboard. When Blackberry comes out with theirs, if Android can't be adequately bug fixed and made reliable so that apps don't quit, I'm going back to that camp. Blackberry phones are rock solid, work very well as phones, don't suffer nearly as many crashes, etc.
I do see you did take some time to weigh pros and cons with Palm and you decided those features were too much of a draw back to go with that company/phone, so why now are you upset because of the decision you've made to get the features you obviously valued more at the loss of other features? Maybe the smaller screen really is more important for the physical key than a bigger screen with no physical key?
The big issue with Palm is that it won't be around in 2011. Cash and burn, baby...
I have no solutions to your 'problems' with a hard key set because I've never found these to be a major problem to begin with, but I hope there is some solution you can come to that will help you out. Whether that be an app or to exchange the phone for another device.
I've never found a phone that I couldn't reassign at least ONE of the keys on the phone to some function in the phone. In 2010, Moto made it so that NONE of the keys are assignable. And how stupid is it that holding a keyboard key doesn't even work.... no... it's a two handed press of the search button and a hard key on the keyboard. It's like Motorola is designing phones for the very first time. Rather embarrassing if you ask me and HTC will clean their clock.
I've personally never experienced any of these problems, have you considered you might have a defective device to start with?
No. It seems that numerous other people have this problem. Look in the Motorola Forums:
https://supportforums.motorola.com/message/84476#84476
The other items are also not just I having problems. A dedicated phone button - or the ability to just assign a button - solves this problem.
I've read your post and your response and you've had some positive responses on how the phone works, but that isn't good enough and you want to continue to be upset about the design... it really just seems like you want to *****, just to *****.
No... I'm just #$@#$ing ticked off that the most basic thing I want the phone to do - act like a phone - can't be done easily. The keyboard sucks but I've found way to make it work. They will have to redesign but it is a keyboard. The battery life is extremely poor and nowhere near advertised time but I've been trying to extend it. OK... it isn't perfect and nothing will be. But if I buy a phone, these things should work like a phone. I'm doing my best and just @#$#ing frustrated that things don't work.
Want some more? There is no way on earth that Outlook is synching properly with my Motorola Droid. You can tell me all day and all night that it works for you. I've been in touch with the Companion Link people here and backup people here who realize that, as of right now, many of us have Outlook databases that are just not synching properly. There is a space here, character there - whatever. Other phones work seamlessly, this one didn't work after screwing with it for 2 days. The only result was to remove all my important data and, with great reluctance, export a data file and import the contacts into gmail. That is the only thing that worked. I'm not the only one.
It's time to accept that the Motorola Droid represents a good phone in some respects and horrific planning and design by Motorola. As I said, HTC will clean Motorola's clock. They know how to make phones and much better than Moto. And they have Outlook sync as standard for their phone. Name me another smartphone that doesn't. Motorola was fortunate to be one of the first releasing the Android OS on Verizon. Their utter inexperience shows.
