[IggleSniggle]

I remember being angry that my Moto Razr V3 had the power to run awesome software but as a teenager I didn't have an easy way to boot stuff up on it. IMHO it was a perfect phone, except there was no way to run what I wanted. The best I could do was program text messaging services and use those. They discontinued the phone rather than give consumers the freedom to just use the hardware. I thought the iPhone was dumb, but when the App Store came out that was game over. I really missed the convenience of having buttons and being able to text with my phone in my pocket, but at least it was consumer programmable... even if you had to pay a $100 premium to become a "Developer" in order to do so.

Eventually the Moto X came along. I thought it was the perfect phone. Its voice assist features worked better than most voice assist features even today. You could easily do everything you wanted to do with the phone in your pocket and your earbuds in.

It had the perfect size screen. It had a great ambient-on watch-face screen that looked nice sitting on your desk among clutter. The dimple in the back was a really nice touch, it made it like a worry-stone[0] in your pocket. It had a lower resolution, but I kinda liked that about it. I think Motorola was bought or something, but whatever the reason, the next phone in the series ditched every single thing that made the Moto X special.

Those two devices were both my favorite mobile computing devices, and probably the closest I've come to getting fan-angry about a company screwing up their own magic.

More to the point: you might have been able to see it at Motorola, but even looking back, I don't understand why Razr couldn't have won against the iPhone. The Razr was a surprisingly capable little machine!

[0] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worry_stone

[eep_social]

You’re gonna love this — Motorola was bought by Google in an attempt to jumpstart their hardware business but it turned out to be a failed acquisition. They ended up grabbing the patent portfolio and selling off the rest of the biz fairly quickly.

[sangnoir]

> You’re gonna love this — Motorola was bought by Google in an attempt to jumpstart their hardware business but it turned out to be a failed acquisition.

I wouldn't call Motorola a failed acquisition - Google bought Motorola as a shield in an increasingly litigious environment: this was the age of Apple going "thermonuclear", Microsoft and patent trolls were wantonly shaking down Android vendors, and beginning to circle Google itself.

Motorola (under Google) had the best value-for-money smartphones - their midrange was solid, and reasonably priced while everyone else was continuously shifting to flagships, with each release priced higher than the last.

From the outside looking in, Google appeared to dispose Motorola to make Samsung happy - Samsung had been complaining loudly and widely about the Motorola acquisition, and openly flirted with other mobile platforms as a hedge.

Motorola shareholders got paid, Google got the patents it wanted, Samsung remained the 600 lb gorilla in Androidland, Lenovo got a good brand and keeps making ok phones to this day. So, not a failed acquisition by any reasonable measure

[the-rc]

Soon after the acquisition, Google, really Google X, started working with Motorola on a new watch, prototyping it on existing hardware (Motoactv?). Within a few weeks, the whole thing got cancelled. Not sure if that was because of the Samsungs of this world complaining or because of government agencies.

Source: I was supposed to run the dogfood program in the NYC office. I never got the watches, but somewhere I still have the USB extension cords and the (then quite fancy) chargers with dual USB ports, one for your phone and one for the watch.

[eep_social]

Yeah, I generally agree with that framing. That’s a good detail about samsung that I was not aware of. But I will say that from an ex-insider perspective — what you describe is mostly a failure.

Google was searching desperately for revenue diversity and was acquiring pretty hard at the time. I think the intent with Moto was to acquire a hardware shop and establish a market leading brand to compete directly with Apple. They eventually arrived at Pixel by building it entirely in-house. That Moto got raided for IP and spun out to Lenovo did not meet those (high) expectations. There was no need for anyone to take a loss but I think Google wanted to make a whole lot of money and did not.

[sangnoir]

I'll defer to you an insider on the hardware efforts, but the timing of the Motorola acquisition in the immediate aftermath of Google's failed bid[1] on Nortel's patent portfolio made it seem more like a patent-play more than a hardware acquisition. I recall Motorola's then-CEO even threatened to sue Google over patent Android infringement just before the acquisition, so it most certainly wasn't just about building a hardware business.

1. It was a crazy time. The winning consortium - which included Apple and Microsoft - invited Google to join their $4.5B bid; which would have made the patents entirely useless as a defense of Google against Apple or Microsoft. Google wisely declined, but bought Motorola less than a year later for $12B. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/jul/02/google-pi...

[orthoxerox]

> Motorola (under Google) had the best value-for-money smartphones - their midrange was solid, and reasonably priced while everyone else was continuously shifting to flagships, with each release priced higher than the last.

And they still do under Lenovo. Multiple-day battery, almost stock Android with very useful enhancements.

[vel0city]

Loads of phones could side-load J2ME apps. I never owned a RAZR V3, but I imagine it would have supported J2ME apps as well as I ran them on even crappier phones. The first things I'd install on my dumbphones back in 2005 was Google Maps and Opera Mini. I'd grab all kinds of J2ME games off Zedge and other sites and copy them over back in the day.

[kevindamm]

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.

[IggleSniggle]

Moto X (2013) was the device I intended to describe. You are right on both counts. I think I conflated the second gen closure of the US-based plant with the acquisition in my memory. And I'm now remembering that the real reason I was so disappointed is that the Moto X (2013) was a phone that you could operate the entirety of the screen one handed. With the Moto X (2014) you could not.

I have an iPhone mini now, but it's still not small enough to 100% operate one-handed, at least not without grip adjustments. The Moto X wasn't quite a flagship phone, but it came close enough. I can't even find a properly one-handed phone anymore

[davidmurdoch]

Moto X was peak phone.