• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

Bionic Jellybean soak test invite

It is odd that you posted this here. I was in previous Bionic soak tests and had to agree not to post any information about the soak test in a public location until it was over.

I guess Motorola change this policy ... right?

... Thom

Wasn't their people who got in on the 905 and ICS soak tests that didn't sign up for them so weren't subject to the nondisclosure?
 
Upvote 0
Wasn't their people who got in on the 905 and ICS soak tests that didn't sign up for them so weren't subject to the nondisclosure?

That is correct. Some people who signed up for the soak test did not get it. Some people who never signed up got it.

I was a soak tester for both of them and could not talk about them until the tests were concluded. The people who never signed up could.

The subject here was receipt of a soak test invitation.

... Thom
 
Upvote 0
I'm just not really excited about this one for some reason......
Likely the real reason many aren't excited is because JB wasn't promised to us when we bought the Bionic whereas ICS was. Not to mention, ICS was a major upgrade the finally allowed the full ability of the hardware to be taken advantage of and JB isjust an incremental upgrade.

Also I think people see it as something that needs to be done and not something just being given to us. People don't get excited when Apple does an iOS update to the iPhones because, well, iPhones are supposed to get the latest upgrade. So with that in mind, why shouldn't a Google owned product get the latest update available.

Of course there are likely many people who would rather have $100 instead of the JB.
 
Upvote 0
considering the delay in the ICS release, I wish they had just skipped over it and gone right to jelly bean. Me? I was perfectly happy with gingerbread and wish I hadn't accepted the ics "upgrade"

Why is that? ICS has truly unlocked the phones full potential and I have JB on my tablet and can't tell much difference over ICS. It's only an incremental upgrade.
 
Upvote 0
Indeed, I am planning on picking up a Galaxy S4 in May. Tired of my slow Bionic and atrocious battery life. I would like to try out Jelly Bean on my Bionic though!

Did you do a factory data reset after ICS installed? Some apps were not designed for ICS and some that were didn't make the transistion well on the same install going from GB to ICS.

As for battery life, not doing an FDR and having some apps misbehave can cause serious battery drain. But there is also another possibility. I recently got a new batter (3 new batteries in fact) off Amazon because the original one that came with the phone was starting to drain faster. The issue was it was merely the end of the life of the battery.

Keep in mind, you have had your phone nearly 2 years. Thats 600 or more charges on the battery if it's original.
 
Upvote 0
Did you do a factory data reset after ICS installed? Some apps were not designed for ICS and some that were didn't make the transistion well on the same install going from GB to ICS.


yeah well that's another thing that pisses me off about the ICS update. I was never notified by verizon or motorola that my phone wouldn't function properly without a factory data reset after the update. That's not a minor detail. If I had known that, I would have never accepted it in the first place.
 
Upvote 0
yeah well that's another thing that pisses me off about the ICS update. I was never notified by verizon or motorola that my phone wouldn't function properly without a factory data reset after the update. That's not a minor detail. If I had known that, I would have never accepted it in the first place.

Smartphones are really just computers that can make phone calls. In fact, they our Bionics are likely just as powerful, it not moreso, than desktop computers of 15 years ago. Would you have upgraded, say from Windows 95 to Windows XP without refortmatting? That is essentially what we are talking about.

Just as computer manufacturers and software makers don't tell us we need to do clean installs, people have learned over the years that the best performance comes with it.

Stop and think about it. We had GB on our phones that wouldn't even use both cores of our CPU's. Many apps never got updates to ICS compatibility, and those that had, some people never updated those apps. So any apps you may have installed under GB, even if ICS compatible, were working totally different because of the underlying OS. This is likely the performance hit.

And honestly, an FDR is relatively painless and easy to do. If you have apps that have user data saved to the phone, such as some checkbook managers for example, you merely save the data file the SD card, and you pull the SD card when you do the FDR, and once the FDR is complete, you merely redownload your apps from the Play Store and reimport your data. yes, it takes some effort, but ANY electronic device is going to take some sort of maintanence effort.
 
Upvote 0
Any proof or facts to back this up? I've seen the same thing posted on another forum but nothing other than hearsay.

Well, Samuri himself posted on the Droid life article...
DROID Bionic Jelly Bean Update Approved by Verizon as Build 98.72.22 (Updated) – Droid Life
Don't drag me into this. :) I don't have any access to see the builds anymore. I'm only going by what I was told. We were told it was supposed to be 23. When I last saw the testing, build 22 didn't look so good. AFAIK it failed testing. So the fact that it's rolling out....not good IMO. I'll be skipping the traditional install of it...

Of course this isnt definitive proof, however, Samuri is likely the most knowledgeable of the Bionic users and if he is taking a wait and see approach, well, that's good enough for me.

But if this is true and this is an unfixed version of 22, then Google needs to use this as a very good reason to take an Apple approach to updating...tell the carriers, specifically Verizon, that they don't need to be doing the approval, that Google's OEM's partners need to be releasing the updates. If 22 is a bad version, I doubt many will realize that Motorola had ever made a version 23 to fix it and will instead blame Motorola and not Verizon.
 
  • Like
Reactions: SirEagle
Upvote 0
22 sucks. badly. Before that particular view of build testing was removed from that group of folks who can see it (and I am *NOT* one of those folks, tyvm) it was pointed out just how badly 22 failed. And then it was further pointed out how FZW was shuffling their feet and Moto could invoke a clause in the contract where VZW would have to pay for the time and effort to build 23 b/c of VZW continually fscking around with their BS software bloat. And now we're all of a sudden getting .22 when in fact we should be awaiting until May and getting a soak of .23?

Yeah, I'll pass.
 
Upvote 0
22 sucks. badly. Before that particular view of build testing was removed from that group of folks who can see it (and I am *NOT* one of those folks, tyvm) it was pointed out just how badly 22 failed. And then it was further pointed out how FZW was shuffling their feet and Moto could invoke a clause in the contract where VZW would have to pay for the time and effort to build 23 b/c of VZW continually fscking around with their BS software bloat. And now we're all of a sudden getting .22 when in fact we should be awaiting until May and getting a soak of .23?

Yeah, I'll pass.

Well according to information on other sites, it's apparent long time Bionic testers and mod makers have some inside knowledge of both how bad 22 was/is and how stable 23 is. Any clue why VZW would push out 22 when 23 is apparently stable?

I just hope if 22 is as bad as everything is being said that people point fingers at Verizon and not Motorola since Moto did apprently did the fixes.

I also hope all Android users complain to Verizon and let them know the OEM's need to control the updates the way Apple does with the iPhones. That is one of my biggest complaints is how Verizon interferes with the Android update process and in this case it may seem like it will really make the customer suffer since Moto can't just release a newer, stable build.
 
Upvote 0

BEST TECH IN 2023

We've been tracking upcoming products and ranking the best tech since 2007. Thanks for trusting our opinion: we get rewarded through affiliate links that earn us a commission and we invite you to learn more about us.

Smartphones