With Google's proposed acquisition of Motorola nearing completion, you might expect those at the manufacturer to be sweet talking their potential new owner.
Motorola senior VP and GM of the firm's enterprise business unit Christy Wyatt wasn't willing to pull any punches when discussing one of Android's eternal problems, however: delays in rolling out OS updates to consumers.
According to Wyatt, manufacturers do the best they can to implement the updates as quickly as they can. The fault, she claimed, lies solely with Google.
No moto-ring
"When Google does a release of the software ... they do a version of the software for whatever phone they just shipped," said Wyatt.
"The rest of the ecosystem doesn't see it until you see it. Hardware is by far the long pole in the tent, with multiple chipsets and multiple radio bands for multiple countries. It's a big machine to churn."
Wyatt said the delay consumers experience is the result of Motorola making sure the update is compatible with each and every of the firm's devices, as well as the process of strapping on its own custom software.
Then the update has to be recertified by carriers scores of which, Wyatt claims, often want to take charge of when their consumers get their hands on it.
"I would have to know that every single operator I have is going to want to upgrade every single product, and sometimes they'll want to control the timing ... it's just not easy to make that blanket statement."
Ice ice baby
Despite all this, Wyatt stated Motorola has been first to deliver an update to customers in the past.
What's more, while she acknowlegded Windows Phone is much more manufacturer friendly on this score - the platform currently supporting just one Qualcomm chipset - Motorola remains firmly committed to Android.
"With ICS, it's more interesting because it starts to have some of the full, desktop-like features," she concluded.
"That has to be one of the promises of Ice Cream Sandwich. By bringing these UIs together, you solve the experience gaps and the ecosystem gaps between [phones and tablets]."
[source: PCMag]
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With a fine eye for detail, Keith Andrew is fuelled by strong coffee, Kylie Minogue and the shapely curve of a san serif font.
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