I am Happy the 2.1 Launcher is Not Coming to Us

[Where'sMyCoffe?]

Wether you like it or not, it should be a option. I'm sorry... this is a flagship device, not a red flag device. People want options, not less than what they expect. So the Eris, which has less of hardware strength than the Droid, can run the live wallpapers, 3d drawer, etc..?

You all can live with less all you want, nothing wrong with that... but umm... I want options.

And yeah, sure the Live Wallpaper may get boring after a while, but so did Modern Warfare 2 after while... but the best thing is?... I have the OPTION to play it...

But yah it is kinda pathetic that I can have multiple screens with my iPod Touch, and only three with the awesome Droid... meh...

A flagship device that shipped with....2.0.

Who was foolish enough to buy the device for what it didn't have yet? A fool and his money are soon parted....

Seriously. I have never, NEVER bought a phone thinking to myself, "Man, what this thing will be able to do in six months!"

Instead, I buy a phone and think to myself, "What a fantastic phone. I love what it does. This should keep me happy till the next phone I want to get rolls around."


Nothing has changed. 2.1 doesn't break ground, the rules, or anything else. It doesn't add much needed voice command over BT, improvements to the Contacts list, or a GPU enhanced UI. It doesn't do anything special.

Lets play devil's advocate for a second. Motorola decides it will put the 2.1 launcher and Live walls in for the Droid. Verizon says "cool" and pushes it OTA.

For those who bought the phone with the app drawer, and don't like the 3D launcher, they are unhappy. Very unhappy. They didn't have a choice.

Then they call Verizon and ***** at them. They didn't buy the phone with this crappy launcher and want it gone. Opps! No can do. Sorry!


Which is a safer business move?

Nexus One owners knew what they were getting beforehand, and bought it as such. They never had the chance to use the app drawer. They still don't have it as a choice, unless maybe rooted, which isn't a legit option for the average Joe and Mary.

Now lets look at Live Wallpaper. If the 3D Launcher does not ship, then they suddenly are not interactive to the touch, and will create a tech support nitemare for Moto and Verizon because hey, the N1 is interactive, why isn't my Droid? Oops! No can do. Sorry!

Which is the safer business move?


People who want choices can root, and do their thing. Shipping the launcher and wallpaper with 2.1 isn't giving a choice, its forcing it on people. Let me ask you, how much of the launcher have you used? Have you used it when it was compiled from source, for the Droid and yet, reboots/crashes the phone?

I have. Motorola may have left it out because its an unstable POS and its not working right on a device that has an ability the N1 and Eris does not: To go into Landscape on the home screen.

It was never about the Droid not being able to "handle" the features.

I hear what people are saying, that its a half assed 2.1 update. Let me ask this. Would you rather there be no update at all? Two programs are looking to be missing. Programs, not critical OS functions. 2.1 is faster than 2.0.1. Have you seen the video? It flies! Thats stock 2.1, no overclocking (due to no root). Pinch zoom in the browser, and gallery.


Sorry, but I will take MT features and performance as a higher priority than some crappy Launcher and some lame wallpaper that wastes several mb of space and I will bore with after about five minutes.

OK, but to play devils advocate with your devils advocate argument, what happens when the launcher and live wallpapers arent included and people call and b**ch about not getting those features?
To be completely honest, I really dont care about the launcher, app drawer, and live wallpaper. But, these options are eye candy and look great to prospective droid owners. Options are great, and should be offered. Let people decide what they want on their phones from themselves.

"I agree with you :icon_ banana:"

 

[KZIWarrior]

OK, but to play devils advocate with your devils advocate argument, what happens when the launcher and live wallpapers arent included and people call and b**ch about not getting those features?
To be completely honest, I really dont care about the launcher, app drawer, and live wallpaper. But, these options are eye candy and look great to prospective droid owners. Options are great, and should be offered. Let people decide what they want on their phones from themselves.

Simple... Moto tells them that next time they need to buy a device with the features they want already installed/included on the phone... Neither Moto or VZW are required or obligated to support the phone by adding features. Their obligation applies only to FUNCTIONAL areas (i.e. signal quality, basic functions (email, phone) ect.).

Anyone that bought this phone think it WOULD be upgraded to include the latest features has some serious issues. You have what you bought, be happy or get another device that will satisfy you (for all of 2 months or so before the next new phone comes out).

 

[Where'sMyCoffe?]

Sigh...

There is so much delusion in this thread, its actually scary. We know some companies are not obligated to give updates that offer new features, but they are obligated to give quality assurance. They are obligated to keep up the quality of a device.

If Google is going to have a "Android 2.1" update for the Nexus One, Eris, etc... that includes the full package, and they give us a half-assed "Android 2.1", and still call it "Android 2.1", then that is both misleading and lazy. Give us a "Android 2.0.6" since it is lacking from what we know as "Android 2.1".

The point is, don't mask the update with the same update name that has all the features, but give us less. Case point, discussion over.

I swear if this phone didn't have "An app can fix that" thought floating around here, I bet many of you would be saying the exact contrary of what you are saying. .

Anyone that bought this phone think it WOULD be upgraded to include the latest features has some serious issues. You have what you bought, be happy or get another device that will satisfy you (for all of 2 months or so before the next new phone comes out).

Oh, is that right? Let me ask you sir... are you rooted? Do you have download applications that enhance your phone? If so, you are in the same boat of people that have these "issues" you proclaim. Didn't get that? Man, I wonder how some of you peoples lives are outside these forums, to call people to have issues because they want and or expect upgrades/updates lol... oh man...

But the percentage of customers that think like you KZI, is so minute, and I'm pretty sure Google, Motorola, or Verizon doesn't listen to the minorities of their customers. The percentage of customers who wants the quality and updates of their phone, aren't minute, but no as big as the average user. The average user of the Motorola Droid doesn't even know about the 2.1 update, although there may be a small exception. You know what Google, Motorola, and Verizon is worried about? Competing with Apple's iPhone and being better. Its not going to happen if they aren't on there toes. On their toes meaning constantly giving more phones the Android OS, constantly giving OSs updates, advertising, etc...

 

[patriot839]

if you guys read the little info given officially from motorola you will see that it says and i quote "motorola droid over the air update coming soon" it does not say 2.1 update like it says for the others so so far they are not promising 2.1 they just promise an update now that said we can only speculate what the update will be or what it will hav DISCUSSION OVER NO MORE POSTS NEEDED

 

[Where'sMyCoffe?]

if you guys read the little info given officially from motorola you will see that it says and i quote "motorola droid over the air update coming soon" it does not say 2.1 update like it says for the others so so far they are not promising 2.1 they just promise an update now that said we can only speculate what the update will be or what it will hav DISCUSSION OVER NO MORE POSTS NEEDED

I think Pete will beg to differ.

 

[patriot839]

PETE a very intelligent man of whome i respect only has a leaked copy of the files that were held back from the jan. 22nd update that was never released i will say it again old copy NEVER RELEASED and that is not what will be released that why it was held back to many issues on moto droid. just so you know i have those file on zip in my laptop taken straight from pete like i said discussion over

 

[gatorbait]

Anyone that bought this phone think it WOULD be upgraded to include the latest features has some serious issues. You have what you bought, be happy or get another device that will satisfy you (for all of 2 months or so before the next new phone comes out).

Actually, if you didn't think the Droid would get a couple of OS updates, you would have serious issues manifested by a disregard of past evidence. You could reasonably come to that belief that the Droid would receive updates by looking at the update schedule of similarly situated phones on the same network. In the past, Verizon has shown the commitment to upgrade their phones when the hardware permits. Verizon's update history combined with the fact that the Droid is a Google Experience branded phone could easily lead one to reasonably believe that OTA OS upgrades would be pushed to the phone.

You have this mindset of "You have what you bought, be happy or get another device[.]" But what you are failing to take into consideration is that the software on these phones is much like the OS on your computer. PC OS get pushed periodic upgrades, and now phones that run a complicated OS necessitate the same. There is a fundamanetal difference in how hardware and software is treated in the 21st century.

I suppose we could all just sit on our hands and be happy with what we've got, but if that were the case, we would still be running Android 1.6 and I'd be typing this reply from a PC with a substandard Vista OS. I assure you that Google, Motorola, and Verizon want their phones to continue to stay relevant and compete favorably in the market, so I see nothing wrong with customers demanding reasonable, feasible improvements.

 

[aaf709]

In the past, Verizon has shown the commitment to upgrade their phones when the hardware permits.

Very true. My last phone was a lowly Voyager and that had no less than 4 updates. Not OTA, but they were available at the Verizon store.

 

[adrynalyne]

KZI should have worded it that neither VZW or Moto are obligated to give you new features in updates. Maintenance updates are different, those do happen and are needed for properly functioning phones.

 

[adrynalyne]

I suppose we could all just sit on our hands and be happy with what we've got, but if that were the case, we would still be running Android 1.6 and I'd be typing this reply from a PC with a substandard Vista OS.

1. The Droid did not ship with 1.6.
2. Computers cannot be compared to cell phones.

 

[adrynalyne]

Anyway, you guys have gone so far off topic its not even funny.

The 3D launcher does not work right for phones in Landscape.

To date, the only phones getting/using the 3D launcher, present and future, are phones that do not go into Landscape on the home screen.

Many of the 2.1 Live wallpapers are not interactive with the 2.0.1 launcher. So if they don't include the 3D launcher, then its likely they would not do the walls either.


I'm still of the opinion that an update with MT, bugfixes, and performance enhancements > a buggy launcher that was never meant to do landscape, and wallpapers that get boring quickly.

 

[gatorbait]

1. The Droid did not ship with 1.6.

Yes, but wasn't it the launch of the Droid that basically prompted the release of 2.0? If users of past phones didn't submit their Android OS feedback to Google, then we could've been left with a 1.6 OS for the Droid. Personally, I hope users continue to submit feedback and Google continues to make improvements to the Android OS so that I can eventually buy a new phone with 3.0 instead of 2.X.

2. Computers cannot be compared to cell phones.

But cell phones can be compared to computers. Now more than ever actually. There is a significant percentage of Droid users who use their phone in a way that more closely resembles a PC than a phone. In fact, for many people, I bet the amount of phone calls they make are negligible compared to the amount of time they use their phone in a way that emulates PC-style functionality.

 

[gentlefury]

I can't stand launcher 2. It's really slow and clunky feeling. I'm using gde right now and it's great.

 

[scratchiti]

I can't stand launcher 2. It's really slow and clunky feeling. I'm using gde right now and it's great.

Sorry, what is "GDE"?

 

[adrynalyne]

1. The Droid did not ship with 1.6.

Yes, but wasn't it the launch of the Droid that basically prompted the release of 2.0? If users of past phones didn't submit their Android OS feedback to Google, then we could've been left with a 1.6 OS for the Droid. Personally, I hope users continue to submit feedback and Google continues to make improvements to the Android OS so that I can eventually buy a new phone with 3.0 instead of 2.X.

2. Computers cannot be compared to cell phones.

But cell phones can be compared to computers. Now more than ever actually. There is a significant percentage of Droid users who use their phone in a way that more closely resembles a PC than a phone. In fact, for many people, I bet the amount of phone calls they make are negligible compared to the amount of time they use their phone in a way that emulates PC-style functionality.

The launching of the Droid did not prompt the development of 2.0, competition did. Vista did not prompt the development of Windows 7, competition did. Thats the difference. Also, you cannot compare cell phones to computers until

1. They are not tied to cellular networks, and thus no longer subject to carrier interference with OS updates.
2. You can choose what OS you want on them, or choose to downgrade, once again, without carrier or manufacturer interference.
3. You can upgrade parts of them.
4. There are multiple companies competing with each other for OS dominance, and is not tied to the hardware.

I could go on and on, but I am sure you see where I am going with this. Just because phones now have comparable CPUs and GPUs, does not make them equal to computers in capability, or flexibility. One day, maybe, but today is not that day.