It's interesting that the original Project Ara Moduino prototype became the Moto Z. Confirms that the Moto Z was developed under Google, because Lenovo sure as fuck wasn't throwing money at Motorola's R&D.
The split might've actually been good, for modular phones at least. The Z might've been scrapped alongside Ara, but alternatively there might be a Google Moto PiXel right now with Google Mods.
While the Phonebloks concept got a lot of hype, I haven't seen any mention of Modu, an Israel based phone manufacturer (startup). They introduced the first modular phone but it wasn't never a success and the company went bankrupt in 2011. Interestingly enough, Google bought their patents and now we have a modular phone concept from Google owned Motorola.
The period when Google owned Motorola was very interesting. The Moto G was a great budget device that I think was killed by carriers who wanted to push $1000 phablets that required consumers to finance them.
Yes, this is the rough idea, except that it was "designed exclusively for the moto Z". The fact that one proprietary mod standard didn't take off is hardly strong evidence against the general idea, and especially the viability of an open standard.
Motorola is a rare example and even more interesting regarding the relation with Lenovo.
Since they keep an almost pristine Android, and hardware is rock solid, I think the paranoia is not necessary. My Moto X force is really unbreakable.
Another interesting bit was that, instead Lenovo to "eat" the Motorola, it seems that it will move all its mobile handsets to the Moto name and leave quite some large space to develop, while supporting it with lots of money.
I was really really skeptical at the beginning and I also told myself not to buy anymore from Moto under Lenovo, but in the main time my opinion changed and seems they go, let's say, not in the wrong direction, especially the Moto Z and the mods.
Remember, Moto was the first company to release an Android phone. And due to Google aquisition it got a lot more balls and had the guts to release again fantastic phones like Moto X and Moto G. Also the Nexus 6.
Lenovo would be stupid to kill the name ( like MS did with Nokia). Hell, I bet the Lenovo guys will stop selling any phones under Lenovo name, and put all the money on Moto brand.
The Moto Z family has something similar (an internal battery plus an optional removable external battery). And from what I've read, the technology it uses seems to be in part based on Google's modular phone prototype.
I really wonder why. Motorola has been building a great brand over the past years, while Lenovo - in my experience - never built a decent smartphone. This will probably result in the pollution of the Moto-brand, causing people to trust it no longer, unless the Lenovo-smartphone department and the Moto-department are also merging.
There's a lot of software on a modern phone. For at least a decade, all the major mobile phone manufacturers have been large software companies.
I don't see what would have changed significantly at Motorola: if anything, they seem to be scaling back their software effort, letting Google take care of the platform.
(Previously Mot was involved with Symbian and had a custom mobile Linux variant -- http://developer.motorola.com/platforms/mobile-linux -- in addition to its proprietary "dumbphone" OS which is used on most of the handsets the company still manages to sell. All of these projects are likely much bigger efforts in terms of manpower than this new "social" shell on top of Android.)
IIRC, moto X was the first phone made by the Google-owned Motorola. The devices were made and assembled in the US.
I was hopeful for the post-acquisition Motorola but it didn't quite pan out. The IP salvaged from the purchase was always a big part of the deal so it wasn't really a loss, just not really much of a win either.
The Motorola situation was baffling, the first generation Moto X, G and E handsets were non-nexus phones finally done bloody right, and as far as I know they flew off the shelves (especially the Moto G)
I know the margins were pretty thin but I don't know how they could consider that anything but a success.
> The RAZR succeeded on design, the software sure wasn't the key attraction of that device.
Yup. Synergy was probably fine for little B&W lcd screen devices, but they kept hacking onto it...
> Motorola's phone O/Ses (yes, plural) were all very underpowered.
Moto Z has a nice innovative design - big magnetic attachment plate in the back for external modules. Still waiting for the killer mods like slide-out keyboards and gamepads though
If Moto's management can convince Google that having tens of thousands of employees making a nice but not special handset is a worthwhile use of Google resources, then yes.
But, in isolation, hells no. The moment this product was revealed, the product management process at dozens of 2nd and 3rd tier OEMs swings into action: "Make one like this, but faster and cheaper."
$200 is a nice price, but it isn't a stunning price. Moto isn't going to drive anything out of the market except, maybe, the Lumia 900, also $200, made by that other legacy high-cost OEM scrambling to stay in the top 10. Perhaps the lesson of Moto X is that it is a phone Nokia could have been making.
This makes much more sense than the Moto X in terms of differentiating Motorola and charting a course that isn't "me too" and competitive with Google's first tier OEM partners.
To be fair, most OEMs have tuned down their customizations compared to the 2.x era.
The Moto G runs a relatively clean version of Android but even in that case some of the additions of Motorola made me cringe. It generates 'help' messages in the first days of usage that I have found very confusing for new smartphone users.
I wish that Google would control its software more tightly, OEMs just can't be left to their own devices, they will always feel the need to make their phones stand apart by any mean necessary.
I would like to be wrong, but I doubt it will happen anytime soon, Google would lose way too much marketshare with such a move.
The split might've actually been good, for modular phones at least. The Z might've been scrapped alongside Ara, but alternatively there might be a Google Moto PiXel right now with Google Mods.
All the things that could have been...
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