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Motorola Moving to Android, Windows Mobile for Smartphones
nerdyH writes "Motorola will ditch its MotoMAGX Linux stack and UIQ Symbian stack in favor of Google's Android Linux/Java stack and Windows Mobile 6.5 and 7, it announced today. The news comes after five years selling millions of Linux phones in Asia, and after a year during which many of Motorola's top US phones used the homegrown Linux stack. Motorola's current Linux phones in the US include the RAZR2 v8, E8, EM30, U9, ZN4, and ZN5."
This also comes alongside news that Motorola's financial hardships are causing them to cut 3,000 jobs. It also puts into perspective their recent plans to hire hundreds of Android developers.
They're probably balancing on the fence keeping their options open. I doubt they'd keep two code bases maintained.
Unfortunately, Motorola phones seem to suck in quite a platform-independent, or shall we say, portable way.
That looks like a newer version of the L6.
My L6 has been durable, fantastic, and simple with no problems except for one: the buttons are way too damn small.
It's great for the ladies or for very small hands in general but I have to use my finer motor skills else I get the keypad-mashing effect.
Is bring a good competitor to the G1 to Verizon. I don't know what most states are like, but almost everyone I know who doesn't own an iPhone uses Verizon in Virginia. If they could get a quality Android-based product available for $200-$300 on the Verizon network, they'd see a huge surge in sales in this state.
The chinese government has decided that, in the future, all phones will be required to use the humble USB port for charging.
I have a Motorola phone with the USB port, and was quite distraught to find that it wouldn't charge when I plugged it into my computer. WTF? There's a russian site online that shows how to short a USB cable so it can charge. I eventually found that if I installed Motorola's drivers it'd charge just fine.
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
I'm actually pretty sure WinMo isn't the most common smartphone platform - that distinction probably goes to RIM, and if not then S60. But Nokia has a much smaller presence in the US than in Europe and Asia. I'm pretty sure RIM has the most smartphones overall.
Gartner's Q2 2008 worldwide statistics by OS put Symbian first, followed by RIM, followed by Windows Mobile, followed by Linux, followed by Mac OS X^W^W^WiPhone OS.
Synergy Research's first-half 2008 US smartphone figures put RIM at the top (46%), Apple second (15%), Motorola third (presumably for all OSes).