Motorola have finally announced the Moto X and while there were very few secrets left for Motorola to announce, there have been a couple of surprises. For one, the Moto X’s bootloader is indeed locked. This is disappointing but, it’s not surprising. It’s a device that is being sold through carriers to customers. The last thing customer support agents want is to deal with complaints that have arisen from custom software. Not that the people looking to apply a custom ROM are going to rin AT&T support anyway, but still. Google and Motorola will have a compromise for customers that want to live in a world with as little bloatware as possible though.
Just as they did with the HTC One and the Samsung Galaxy S4, Google will be selling a Google Play edition of the Moto X in the Play Store. It’s said that this is going to launch “soon”. It’s strange to think that a device designed by Google and Motorola will need a Google Play edition but, the carriers will likely require their own bloatware shipped with their devices. As the HTC One and Galaxy S4 have been described as “Nexus” devices when bought from the Play Store, the Moto X might be best bought from the Play Store.
There’s no word on just when it’s going to launch in the Play Store, or for how much but, we doubt very much it’ll retail for the same prices as the HTC One and Galaxy S4. What will be interesting to see is whether it launches with Android 4.3 or Android 4.2.2 as the carrier versions are launching with. A Play Store edition would more than liklely only ship in the 16GB option and only work on AT&T and T-Mobile. Something else to bare in mind is that the software at the heart of the Moto X might not make the jump to a Google Play edition. Of course, there is a slim chance that Google will just embed these features into Android itself. Here’s hoping.
Are you going to wait for the Moto X to launch in the Play Store?