How many Motorola lovers have been angered by the way Motorola has presented themselves? I bet there are quite a few of you out there. It would be especially frustrating since Motorola had joined the Android Upgrade Alliance , which was ‘suppose’ to be a “promise” so to say to upgrade all of the devices within an 18 month time bracket. However, Motorola gave no such promise.
If you turn to the Motorola forums, they were actually sneaky enough to “quietly” put in a thread that stated it would be “abandoning its upgrade pledge.” WHAT?! You would not expect such disappointment from the company we truly thought would deliver for us. Soon, many devices including the Photon 4G, Atrix 4G, and the Electrify were completely removed from the upgrade list and left in the dust.
An e-mail from an anomous source revealed this statement:
“Just seems they were happy to join the alliance when it helped them sell handsets. Now that it’s time to do the work, they’re dropping all devices.”
I have to agree with that statement, when Motorola first joined with Google, I thought that it was the greatest and that devices with be released with better quality and hardware, but also no locked bootloaders and upgrades delivered more efficiently. However, this has been proven to be the total opposite. Leaving many consumers stuck with Android 2.3 or better called Gingerbread. Gingerbread is old and outdated. Its 2 releases behind of what is new and hip, so why is Motorola performing such an act of Mobile Phone OS crime? No one knows, and Motorola won’t release a comment on the matter. Such a shame to see a company that I thought could have such great potential.
The biggest kicker of it all is Motorola keeps “crying wolf.” What do I mean? This is the second time (there may be more) now that Motorola claimed they were on board the upgrade program, but have proved false to its word. Not exactly a good quality to portray to consumers. This has caused faithful Motorola fans to get very angry. So angry that this is the “last straw” they claim. Ouch, Moto what are you doing here? The goal is to keep and gain customers not to lose them all.
Jacob Depenbusch, a Photon owner released his feelings in an interview saying:
“My family and myself all bought the Photon because it met the specifications of being upgraded to ICS. Had they not promised an update, the phone would’ve been out of the question. And then they reneged on the promise. They benefited financially from lying to us, and these phones certainly aren’t cheap. This is an appalling business practice.”
I don’t even have to give my opinion because I think Jason does a fine job himself. “Appalling business practice” would be the key phrase to play attention to here. Other Motorola device owners are even going to the lengths of filing complaints with the Better Business Bureau, while others will never support or buy a Motorola device again.
What did Motorola do to answer the needs of the voices? They offered a $100 credit to upgrade to a better phone. Wow! Dan Brew, an Atrix owner stated his feelings on Motorola’s answer:
“The fact they are offering $100 to swap to another Motorola phone is laughable. I will not be touching it or another Motorola phone with a barge pole. I don’t want a new phone — I want my current phone that I have to keep for another year, as that’s how long my contract is for. There are very few companies that I have felt I needed to boycott, but Motorola has just earned that honor.”
Big congratulations to Motorola for losing yet again ANTOHER customer. You would think that after all of the unhappy customers that Motorola would shape up here, but no such action has yet to be shown.
There are still speculators out there that say it shouldn’t matter. The Atrix 4G, Photon 4G, and Electrify are all ‘good, dependable’ devices, and Gingerbread is still a good operating system. So it just shouldn’t matter whether Motorola decides to upgrade them or not. I’ll leave it up to the readers to decide the stance on the matter. Should it matter?
Sources: CNet