Motorola CEO: Open Android store leads to quality issues
- 03 June, 2011 04:45
- Comments 10
Motorola's CEO blamed the open Android app store for performance issues on some phones.
Of all the Motorola Android devices that are returned, 70 percent come back because applications affect performance, Sanjay Jha, CEO of Motorola Mobility, said during a webcast presentation at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Global Technology conference on Thursday.
Unlike most other mobile app stores, the Android Market is totally open, meaning anyone can upload an application to the store. While Google removes applications that are found to be malicious, there is no mechanism for ensuring that applications perform efficiently.
"For power consumption and CPU use, those apps are not tested. We're beginning to understand the impact that has," Jha said.
One way that Motorola is able to better understand and in the future control the impact applications have on performance is through its Motoblur application. Launched initially as a social-networking hub on most Motorola phones, Motoblur now serves a broader purpose, he said.
Motoblur collects information about customer use of applications and how that use relates to functions like power consumption. With that data, Motorola learns which applications drain power. "We are getting to the place that we should be able to warn you," Jha said. He envisions presenting a notice to users when they launch an application alerting them that using the application will drain 35 percent of the phone's power, for example, he said. The user can then decide to continue or conserve power.
Adding capabilities to Motoblur is one way that Motorola can try to set itself apart in an increasingly crowded Android market. With Motoblur the company wanted to first build scale, then delight customers and finally see what kind of competitive leverage it can get from the software, he said. Currently, about 10 million people have Motorblur on their phones. "It's beginning to get interesting," he said.
Offering unique and valuable services is becoming increasingly important among Android vendors. When Motorola first bet on Android, it was a risky decision that differentiated the company, he said. "Of course now there are a number of players so Android is not a differentiator," he said.
It's still a good bet, though, because he believes Android is evolving and innovating faster than any other platform. "The negative is all of us are competing extremely hard to get more market share and attention," he said. "So those are the trade-offs there."
Nancy Gohring covers mobile phones and cloud computing for The IDG News Service. Follow Nancy on Twitter at @idgnancy. Nancy's e-mail address is Nancy_Gohring@idg.com
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Comments
Steven
Is this guy the *only* person that doesn't know how bloated and slow Motoblur is???
I _guarantee_ that the majority of the returns are due to them trying to run Motoblur on things like the Cliq, or the Charm, or any number of already-too-slow phones.
It's amazing to me that he can look a gifthorse like this in the mouth, and then have the nerve to complain about something he clearly doesn't understand to begin with. I wonder if a person in his position has ever even attempted to use one of their lower-end crap phones running Motoblur?? He should, and then try running the Droid 1, which didn't have any of that crap - the comparison should prove a revelation to him.
rogerdugans
I have had two Motorola phones and the first priority for both was to find a way to get rid if "MotoBlur"- which should really be named "MotoSlow" or "MotoBloat."
My original Droid and Droid 2 Global both run far better- longer and more reliably- without MotoSlow on them.
My sister decided on a D2G instead of an iPhone recently and for various reasons she kept the MotoSlow stuff. We have compared the speed of both phones and mine is faster when doing ANYTHING.
Sometimes it is considerably faster.
Adding bloat and crippling your phones is what MotoSlow does, Sanjay Jha. Get rid of it or at least make it optional and I am sure you will have far fewer returns.
aDubson
Maybe it's so slow because it's recording EVERYTHING that what we're doing with moto phones, I think that just might take up some of the available battery, cpu, and performance.
Vanilla Android should be downloadable in the market. This is not likely.
complaint
You guys at Motorola got to wake up. The internal applications are messing up. Sending text messages causes reboot regularly. I've uninstalled all crap and it still suxs. What's the use of a mobile phone if you can't send msgs and have to wait 5 secs for screens to load.
auTrevor
Note to Motorola: People buy Motorola phones DESPITE Motoblur, NOT because of it. My current phone is a Motorola (with Motoblur). My next phone will NOT have Motoblur on it. If you want my next phone to be a Motorola, you know what you have to do.
Andy Furnival
Motorola have a long history of pushing under-performing phones into the market.
What Motorola have failed to realise is
1) their Motoblur is a big fat pile of useless garbage but they'll never admit it until they have a solid replacement
2) they only put enough hardware to support the factory default installations, thus prevent most 3rd party apps functioning properly
Yes, some developers produce rubbish CPU and memory hogging apps, but thats the way of the world companies like Motorola should work with developers more to produce app health checks.
Their Xoom is also an under-performing POS too, even in it's vanilla default out-of-the-box state, it's sluggish compared to Samsung Galaxy
Tarek
I got rid of the Atrix because Motoblur sucked. Plus, I could not use security and answer a call with bluetooth, I had to pull my phone out and put the password in. Tha'ts crazy. Also, it had a front facing camera, but I cant make voice calls through the cell lines, it had to eat up my data.
If I install a badly performing app, I remove it. Simple. I cannot remove motoblur, I cant mod it with efuse to use like I want to, so I gave them their phone back, they can keep it. I am much happier with my single core galaxy s.
Attention!!!
Attention Motorola Marketing: I will not buy an Android phone with a custom GUI and apps I cannot uninstall and Bing search. We don't want your crap on our phones! There is no value add!
Raphael Miranda
This is fixable, Motorola. Just create an adroid store for apps you think are worth while for consumers and make them aware they should use apps from your market for greater compability and performance.
Just don't take away their ability to install from Google Market, Amazon's or whatever.
mattf
Funny. I didn't buy a Droid, Droid 2 or Droid X because of how SLOW motoblur was compared to HTC Sense in the out of box experience.
On a BRAND NEW handset, even on the Moto Atrix(dual core Tegra 2), try scrolling back and forth between homescreens quickly, it'll hitch and "freeze"
My last phone, the HTC Incredible and my current one, the Thunderbolt, scroll SMOOTHLY no matter how many apps i have open.
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