What does Google's Acquisition of Motorola Mobility mean for the future of Droid?

[DF Smod]

Death of MotoBlur? Let's hope so

+1 for this...

 

[Cubanito]

Personally I think this is awesome news. Being a new motorola convert (droid 3 & Xoom) I am liking this news even more. I love how their products don't feel plasticky and can't wait to see what the future brings.

Sent from my DROID3 using Tapatalk

 

[nikecar]

I swear, there has been more Moto-fans creaming in their pants today than they've probably creamed in their lifetimes.

 

[rck76]

I swear, there has been more Moto-fans creaming in their pants today than they've probably creamed in their lifetimes.

Oh my goodness, lmao

Sent from my Droid using DroidForums

 

[TyrantII]

Everyone thinks it's good news. It's not. Google now has what it needs to become the next Apple. It's not going to be open android goodness for all. The code will fork and only Motorola will get the best versions of the OS. And that will be more locked down then ever. Resistance is futile! Sent from my DROID X2 using DroidForums

Sounds like good news to me. The biggest flaw recently from mobile phone manufactures is their continued insistence on focusing on their (poorly implemented) software and making sure that their phones are locked down as much as possible, to squeeze the most out of the customer. Hell, look at the D3 with motoblur, useless bloatware, and hardware device issues because of that split focus (camera issues, ducking issue, ect ect) This is going to offer an alternative, where a manufacture who makes awesome quality hardware, now has access to the software gods at google. The other manufactures can adapt or die. They should strictly be focusing on quality hardware for here on out, and leave the OS up to the big three and the apps up to 3rd party dev's. It's the can of worms they opened when they signed on to the apple/smartphone craze. You simply can't create a handheld PC, then nerf it and sell it piecemeal to your customers.

 

[estobaughn]

Google made a good decision. Why?
You: Is that an iphone?
Me: no
You: oh its a droid phone?
Me: yeah
We are not getting asked oh is that a nexus 1. Key word in that conversation is droid. Motorola has rights to use it. Noone else does. Moto won the device war they didnt know they were having and google snatched them up. Good job not being evil google. We might be seeing all moto phone being goog experience devices. Give me what i want.

Sent from my DROID3 using DroidForums

 

[spunker88]

Motorola has the rights to use the word Droid but they are still paying royalties to use it. If you look on your Droid box it says its a trademark of Lucasfilm, and maybe this could explain why its called the Milestone in other countries.

I really hope this deal opens up Motorolla devices in the future. While Google would now have the ability to make Android locked down like iOS, that would go against the mission of Android and I can't see Google doing it. Android would have not been nearly as popular if Google kept it on Nexus phones only. I'm hoping this deal means future Motorolla phones will be closer to stock Android. Obviously Verizon will still add in their crap, but it would be nice if Google was able to negotiate and at least make the uneeded stuff removable.

 

[sarreq]

actually it's Verizon who have the rights to use "Droid". do you see a Moto Droid Anything on Sprint , T-Mobile, AT&T our anywhere else? nope. the Droid/D2/D3 is called "Milestone/M2/XT860" everywhere but Verizon because of this.

"Droid" as a term for any Android based smartphone is just an ubiquity the same way as tylenol (acetaminophen/paracetamol) or coke (carbonated cola flavored beverage) or sawzall (electric reciprocating saw)

although how Lucasarts owns "droid" as a trademark i can't figure out, I'm sure the word existed before Star Wars...

back on topic, is this an acquisition of all of Motorola, or just the Mobility division. if it's Moto as a whole, i could see this as a way to jump start GoogleTV.

 

[Chizzele]

Droid is a Verizon term. On Verizon there is the samsung droid charge which has nothing to do with Motorola. Otherwise i think this is bad news only for Apple.

Sent from my Droid using DroidForums

 

[CLShade]

We'll see how it actually shakes out. Google says they aren't going to change how Moto runs but I don't think they're going to be able to resist doing so forever. We've also seen that what Google says or implies its going to do concerning Android doesn't always end up being what happens.

I'm guessing that Moto devices will get faster/better updates simply for the fact that they'll have more access to expertise. This won't make Moto more competitive than the others, it'll just bring it up to snuff. Remember that Moto Mobile has been losing money for a while. The D1 was a welcome shot in the arm but that was their last really solid hit. (Which, ahem, should be a substantial vote in favor of unlocked bootloaders. Having an open source, free community of devs that extends the life - and value - of your devices is ~not~ a bad thing.)

I don't think Moto's competitors will really need to worry about Google propping up Moto for a while. I do think a Google owned Moto Mobile ~will~ eventually become an big swinging...uh, thing... in the Android world but I'm not sure that's going to be a big detriment to the other Android OEM's. In fact, if Google can get equal footing with Apple and Microsoft then the other OEM's stand to benefit from Android's increased stability in the market.

It probably also helps them ~ a lot ~ that Apple and Microsoft could then sue Google directly instead of using the smaller companies (with much smaller pockets) as proxy battlefields.

I do hope it increases support for droids, though. Switching recently to the as yet unrooted D3 (from a blessedly open D1) has reminded my how much responsibility OEM's have over our user experience. I wish they'd quit that.

Want to make a device that I want to buy and use? Then make it so I can set it up however I d@mn well please. If that becomes standard... then the OEM's can focus on outdoing each other with hardware improvements. Wouldn't that be novel?

 

[technogeek00]

Id say +1 to the entirety of that statement.
If nothing else i think we can all say it would be extremely hard for this deal to turn out to be a negative thing for the android ecosystem or the motorola droid line.

Sent from my Transformer TF101 using DroidForums

 

[Fr33dom]

I do hope it increases support for droids, though. Switching recently to the as yet unrooted D3 (from a blessedly open D1) has reminded my how much responsibility OEM's have over our user experience. I wish they'd quit that.

Want to make a device that I want to buy and use? Then make it so I can set it up however I d@mn well please. If that becomes standard... then the OEM's can focus on outdoing each other with hardware improvements. Wouldn't that be novel?

Problem is that the OEM is always going to respond to what the service provider wants. And they want to control your access to their services so that they can charge you too much to use those services.

 

[aramos87]

With Google owning Moto Mobility dont they have the final say on what is on their devices though? Couldnt this mean unlocked bootloaders, less bloat for everyone (Moto users)? I for one think that this is good news.

 

[spunker88]

With Google owning Moto Mobility dont they have the final say on what is on their devices though? Couldnt this mean unlocked bootloaders, less bloat for everyone (Moto users)? I for one think that this is good news.

Verizon has the final say I'm afraid. They need to approve of the device before they start selling it. I just hope Google will try to force carriers to cut back the bloat or at least make it uninstallable. I think a decent compromise would be to include the bloat, make it uninstallable, but have it return upon factory reset similar to how computers with OEM recovery partitions work. Smartphones are going the way of OEM computers. I remember in the 90s when they came OEM with a mostly clean installation of Windows. Nowadays OEMs pack them full of bloatware just like phones, but at least on computers you can remove it all. People who aren't going to use the Verizon crap are going to uninstall it if allowed and those few people that actually want it will have it. What does Verizon have to lose here?

 

[aramos87]

Verizon has the final say I'm afraid. They need to approve of the device before they start selling it. I just hope Google will try to force carriers to cut back the bloat or at least make it uninstallable. I think a decent compromise would be to include the bloat, make it uninstallable, but have it return upon factory reset similar to how computers with OEM recovery partitions work. Smartphones are going the way of OEM computers. I remember in the 90s when they came OEM with a mostly clean installation of Windows. Nowadays OEMs pack them full of bloatware just like phones, but at least on computers you can remove it all. People who aren't going to use the Verizon crap are going to uninstall it if allowed and those few people that actually want it will have it. What does Verizon have to lose here?

yeah I agree with that, there are 2 apps that I do use that were pre-installed which is DLNA and zumocast (which needs some work), but as far as the VZW apps go I wish I could uninstall them... every single one of them!! haha

Lets just hope that the chagnes that come along are for the better and make Moto Droid a force to be reckoned with!