Bootloader

[F0nz0]

@matias12

Motorola does not want you to give a new life to your phone; with their current locked bootloader policy Motorola only wants you to buy their new one instead.

From a commercial point of view, this is understandable, but it's also the typical short-term sales strategy of making quick money, which won't work in the long run. A company selling locked phones is not likely to survive this coming decade on a market where almost every major competitor issue phones without locked bootloaders.

@Randy

Thanks for passing this on. What can we expect from the product teams of Moto? Is there a possibility that they will make available the tool mentioned by adi4motion? That would be the most logical step after the promise that was made by Motorola in 2011.

[LeopardSurd]

In Europe, Defy and Defy+ are very popular and I can say that only, or almost only these phones make Motorola name known in Central and East Europe. 

The Devs should offer the possibility to unlock the bootloader and to offer updates for Defy+. This way, Motorola will gain more customers, more fans here and so...more profit. 

Unfortunately, I know that support for Defy is obsolete. The Moto Devs should re-think that. The CianogenMod statistics show how popular is. Only RAZR can be better in future than Defy series. An this fact is not shure because the target price is not the same. 

In this region of Europe, Moto will have no chance to have well sold devices like Samsung or HTC without offering an adequate software support.

[MontyTTC]

Might I draw your attention to Motorola's stated approach to corporate responsibility (Here)

"Protect the trust of our consumers and customers"

I am afraid that you have failed rather spectacularly. We have had announcement that bootloaders would be unlocked by the end of 2011, this then morphed into "the team is continuing to work through plans on an unlockable version for Europe and hoping to have details in the next week” on the 29th December 2011. And finally you have presented us with the “Developer Edition”.

How does the board measure the protection of trust?

As has been stated above those of us who live in Europe have no restrictions placed on us by carriers and indeed bought the phone as it came with the promise of a future update to ICS and an unlocked bootloader.

If you continue like this you will have completely alienated that part of your customer base that can influence the buying decisions of the majority of users.

It’s a very risky path to take.

Why not choose the easy option and release a simple bit of code that will allow us to use our devices to their full potential.

The Razr should be the number one selling handset on the planet due to its excellent hardware and build quality. The fact that it is not should tell you something?

[-TSON-]

Allow me to re-iterate what was stated above:

Right now, customer relations, speed/frequency of updates, and locked bootloaders, three very very very very important qualities to a thriving Android manuafacturer, are the only things keeping you from success in the market. Motorola makes the best phones, with the best build quality, and the best radios around. Can't you see that? What reason would more tech-savvy customers have to NOT recommend a RAZR from Motorola, should it come with an unlockable bootloader, from a company that keeps its works transparent and are much in tune with their customers' demands (meaning your PR folk don't outright ignore/dodge all questions on certain subjects...), and delivers speedy updates to their Android portfolio?

Motorola makes the BEST PHONES AROUND - did you read that above? Companies like Asus, Samsung... They keep close tabs on all of their customers, and listen to overwhelming demand. They're bustling right now. In this day and age, nobody wants to buy a phone with a chastity belt from a company that doesn't talk to its customers, that'll be outdated in a month.

Times are changing! Please rethink your bootloader policy, and listen/respond to your customers more. I hate to see you guys sink.

[MontyTTC]

While you are "listening" to us I would like to add the following question:

What happened to the FM radio that was advertised as being in the Razr? It appears on three separate pages of the user manual but I am at a loss where to find it on the phone!

Perhaps it will be enabled in late 2011 when you unlock our bootloaders!

Or perhaps it will come with ICS.

I would really like an answer to this one as it was a key factor in my buying the phone in the first place (along with the promise of the unlocked bootloader!)

Regards,

MontyTTC

[MartinN]

TSON - amen. They do make one of the best phones in the industry (e.g. my Droid X ), and they are experts at hardware - not software so much .. I am livid at their locked bootloader policy that prevents developers like me, from tinkering with the phone anywhichever way we want.

Perception is reality - MOTO knows this. If they do not open up the RAZR, the X, X2, so on and so forth completely, my patience, our patience will run out. I am still not up on my 2 years with VZW, but a colleague (who just got the Nexus Prime) of mine already got me thinking about the Samsung Nexus even though I told him I like the sleek designs of MOTO's phones more, e.g.was a MOTO fanboy.... Hell, I even put up with 5 different Droid X's rebooting on me randomly for no reason at odd times, BECAUSE I like to give preference to Motorola, for the super swanky designs of the phones, the American-slant of the company instead of a South Korean one... etc etc.

But frankly, I am -tired- of them acting like THEY know better than me as to what I want to do with the phone, once I've paid dearly for it with my hard earned cash, and others are growing tired too, very very tired, to the point where MOTO is going to become a distant memory in the eyes/minds/hearts of those who matter the most - developers developers developers (to quote Ballmer).

So MOTO, you hear..yeah.. but you don't listen. Wake up please and smell the coffee!

[nepotu]

Dear Motorola staff,

I'm glad to see that our message was heard, at least a part of it, cause I feel that it's like you've "understood" only the part you wanted from our message. I also see that you advise us  to respect your user guidelines and the community, but are you planning to do the same? I'm afraid not!

As the other users mentioned, we were told by Motorola that in the second part of the 2011 there will be some devices with unlocked bootloaders. Guess what. Now it's 2012 and we haven't seen those unlocked bootloaders. How can we call this?

Moreover, you continue to consider us fouls and you're not missing a chance to mock us. Why do I say this? Because you PROMISED that you'll unlock the bootloaders and after the deadline you say that you "might" launch some devices with already unlocked bootloaders but without warranty. Are you serious? Did we request a new device or did you promised in the past that a new device with unlocked bootloader will be launched? Hmmm, NO! It's seems to me that all you cared about was to get our money. You don't care about updating the software nor you care about security breaches that the users with older devices are exposed to (). We get it. You, as a big company do not intend to invest any resources for those fouls that have already bought a Moto branded smartphone, but in this case why don't you let us to ensure we have updated software running?

As a side note: I've been a Nokia user for many, many years, but they seemed no to care that the world around them was changing and this came with a high price and it will be hard for them to get back. Same applies to any major player nowadays, even for you. You have to listen what your customers want otherwise you'll push them to your competition. You've fouled us once , then with stupid marketing moves like the launch of Defy+ and the RAZAR Maxx, just to force the hands of your customers to buy new devices every few months.

Guess what? In fact we are not that stupid and we will strike back. We won't buy ANY other Moto branded devices and we will recommend all of our friends NOT to buy devices made by you. I know you'll say that we, the enthusiast, are a very small part of your customers base. It's true, but keep in mind we can make a lot of "noise" and we'll do our best to make ourselves heard by the others. Wait and you'll see this will get VIRAL! Look what happened when similar activities were directed to your competition (HTC, Samsung, Asus). The only difference was they were smart enough to understand that the customers are the ones that keeps them on market.

Don't try to cool us down with your already known trick: blaming others (like you've blamed in the past the service providers while you weren't able to launch Froyo, and outdated system at that moment, as it was released for a year; same applies for the locked bootloaders). How did HTC and the others managed to unlock the bootloaders for devices launched before 2011? Were they selling those devices on their own shops or were they selling through providers? If it was possible for them to unlock the bootloaders and they managed to overcome that "security crisis" generated by the unlocking process, why it is not possible for you to do the same?

Remember: Foul me once, shame on you. Foul me twice, shame on me!

PS: My message is not meant for vgangone, ElizabethS, DJ_Ksar or other employees that are put in the front line to take all the heat from the community. I know they are simple employees and they don't have enough power to decide.
PPS: I apologize for my long post and for my broken English but we had enough!

Kind regards,
nepotu

[Fitzpete]

I am actually starting to wonder if Motorola is going to release a working ICS version for the Razr at all. It would not be the first promise not being kept. They can always blame providers for not allowing them to do so...

[popcorn]

The retail versions of motorola Defy deserve the unlocked bootloaders.

In India, majority of the Motorola Defy Phones are sold in retail without any service contracts.

[Sportster]

Fitz, thinking the exact same thing. What we've been told and the truth are two opposing things with this Company. I'm hoping the Dev community can bypass that stupid locked BL and give us a working ICS soon. Certainly can't depend on Moto to....