The economy is still in recovery from one of the biggest stock market crashes in some time. The debate on whether the economy is truly recovering and unemployment numbers are truly going down fill the news. Depending on what side of the fence you are on we are either heading in the right or wrong direction. It is 2012 and Barack Obama is about to start his second term as President.
Then Motorola, the darling company of America recently purchased by Google at the time, announces a phone that will bring jobs back to America. Pride in the American labor force is at center front as we are going to see a revolutionary way to buy phones.
No longer will we have to accept the few basic options offered by other phone manufacturers, as Motorola is now going to give the customer the ability to customize their phones. Everything from colors, materials, to accessories and wallpapers, will be customizable online. And what was best about all this was the phones were going to be built in the good ole United States. And who couldn’t get behind a phone assembled in the US putting hundreds of Americans back to work?
Unfortunately that was not enough to inspire sales. Samsung and Apple dominated the smartphone industry yet again and Motorola could not get over the subpar reviews. The price that Motorola was initially asking was not what Americans were willing to pay for a dual core phone when quad core was at the forefront. Poor sales led to the eventual shutdown of the American Motorola plant.
Here we are years later and Motorola, now Lenovo, is about to hit the American workforce with another layoff. Various sources have reported that Motorola will be laying off half of their workforce in Chicago. This is unfortunate news for many workers as they will be looking for employment elsewhere in about a month.
Motorola have not been able to recapture the magic of the Droid and Droid X. Though they have seen excitement over phones like the Razr, they just seemed like they were a step or two behind the other phones on the market. Some would argue that they lost a chunk of their fanbase after the comment they made back in 2011.
It is safe to say that the Motorola we knew and loved during the time of the Droid and Droid X will never be that way again. The market has changed so much and it is getting hard to break through the two horse race of Samsung and Apple.
But before we say good bye for good let’s take the time to remember the things Motorola did years before others, starting with the Droid bringing the mainstream eyes toward Android. Through android did not begin with the Droid, the excitement for android did. A phone designed to go toe to toe with the iPhone offering everything “i didn’t”. Known for it’s build quality, the Droid changed android forever as it inspired many young developers to develop for the first time so to make their phone look cool.
The iconic camera hump of the Droid X continued the excitement of the Droid-line. Despite ushering in terms such as “locked bootloader”, “pre-installed apps”, and “Motoblur”, it spurned a following from those who wanted the droid without the keyboard and a larger screen.
Back in 2011, Motorola released the Atrix 4G (exclusively) on AT&T. Despite it not getting as much love as the other phones, it was one of the first android phones with a fingerprint reader. Housed on the top rear of the phone, the user only had to swipe down with his or her finger to unlock their phones.
Before people started sporting that carbon fiber skin on their phones, Motorola showed us how awesome a phone would look with a carbon fiber back panel. The Droid Razr was not only the phone to lead the industry in a push to go thinner, but it also had that carbon fiber back panel.
Before Samsung Dex, Motorola was trying to turn their phones into a desktop set up. With the lapdock users could turn their phones into laptop computer using the the phone’s software as the OS. During the time when there was a battle to fill the void in between the desktop and the laptop, Motorola felt it had the solution.
Before we were saying “OK, Google” we were saying “OK Motorola”.
One of the cool features as a result of the Google owned Motorola (at the time) was Touchless Control, a feature that came exclusive to the Moto X. It had the ability to use your voice to make calls, check notifications, set alarms, check the weather, set appointments, and more. All the things that our assistant devices are able to do now Motorola was doing back then in 2013.
What are the contributions that you felt Motorola made to the smartphone industry?