Help Frustration with Motorola, Android OS, 2.3 problems - iOS better for me?

this is my first smartphone, and I'm moderately tech savy. I loved it until the last update. Froyo was working very well for me. Now, while I see the improvements GB has brought, much smoother, faster scrolling etc, it has (and it could be either Google or Moto) some annoying issues. My wife also has DX. I have had issues off and on with random reboots, notifications not working all the time (missed calls have never worked LED wise), I'm a swype user and it definitely is not as accurate as prior, my wife's keyboard locks up and we have to clear the learned words every few days (we could use a different keyboard, but why should I have to when the previous one was fine). My bluetooth in my car doesn't work as well, often times I have to make a call twice for it to connect (if you watch the screen, when you make a call, nothing happens while previously it would turn on and you could see it making the call) and I already reconnected it. My battery life got worse also, but just a little. All sort of minor issues, but make the overall experience worse than Froyo. Before GB (and I'm not necessarily blaming GB, as I think Moto is more to blame) update I thought I'd never go away from Android next go around, now I'm more open to change. I would agree that all devices have issues and I'm hoping the "coming" update fixes some of these issues also. I've done the data wipe/factory reset etc and it's maybe helped some, but still having issues. I do think a lot of it is Motorola more so than Android. So, I guess it depends on what you had with Froyo as for your satisfaction with the 2.3.3 update.

Metfanant said:

care to elaborate as to what is so bad about the GB update?

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Just a few of the things that really bother me and have started with the GB ugrade:

1.) Battery life significantly reduced.
2.) Camera defaults to wide screen.
3.) Camera ISO can no longer be set manually.
4.) Often the camera will not save a picture just taken. I have to turn the phone off/on to get the function back.
5.) Many apps, like TV guide, market, etc. take much longer to load.
6.) WiFi, if I leave the area and return, I have to turn off WiFi and back on again to get it to connect.
7.) Some times when I make a call all appears normal but the called party hears nothing. Requires a battery pull to fix it.
8.) Bluetooth would flawlessly connect to my Kenwood car unit both as a phone and media source. Now it always connects as media player but I have to turn the phone function off/on to get it to work.

The list is much longer. I had none of these problems prior to the GB upgrade and was one of the phone's biggest defenders.

Jim

Jim Dawson said:

Just a few of the things that really bother me and have started with the GB ugrade:

1.) Battery life significantly reduced.
2.) Camera defaults to wide screen.
3.) Camera ISO can no longer be set manually.
4.) Often the camera will not save a picture just taken. I have to turn the phone off/on to get the function back.
5.) Many apps, like TV guide, market, etc. take much longer to load.
6.) WiFi, if I leave the area and return, I have to turn off WiFi and back on again to get it to connect.
7.) Some times when I make a call all appears normal but the called party hears nothing. Requires a battery pull to fix it.
8.) Bluetooth would flawlessly connect to my Kenwood car unit both as a phone and media source. Now it always connects as media player but I have to turn the phone function off/on to get it to work.

The list is much longer. I had none of these problems prior to the GB upgrade and was one of the phone's biggest defenders.

Jim

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and only two of those (maybe 3) are actually issues with GB...the rest are issues with your install because the majority of us are having no such problems...

Metfanant said:

and only two of those (maybe 3) are actually issues with GB...the rest are issues with your install because the majority of us are having no such problems...

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That's more than a little disingenuous.

Just because it's not a systemic issue that affects all GB users, this kind of common complaint is, in fact, a Gingerbread problem. Maybe the install process isn't as robust. Maybe it has conflicts with specific apps because of bad code. Maybe it's just less tolerant of badly coded apps.

However, the important part is the user experience. It's a bad update if it's a bad user experience, and this is clearly bad for a number of people.

I'm the first one to, when someone is troubleshooting, try to separate out a systemic issue from a specific issue with a user install. But this isn't troubleshooting, these are people frustrated with an update that broke their working systems. That's totally valid and is not deserving of you dismissing it like it's not a problem with the update.

Metfanant said:

and only two of those (maybe 3) are actually issues with GB...the rest are issues with your install because the majority of us are having no such problems...

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It doesn't matter if these problems are my install's or the upgrade's, the fact is that a perfectly working system is no longer working correctly after I was forced to upgrade to GB. Therefore it is certainly the fault of this forced upgrade.

I've been using smart phones since their inception and this is the first time an OS upgrade has adversely affected my phone this much.

Your answer is in no way helpful but thanks for taking the time to educate me.

binary visions said:

That's totally valid and is not deserving of you dismissing it like it's not a problem with the update.

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yet its not a problem with the update itself...GB for the X does not inherently suffer from those problems...period...

yes of course there are people who's phones had problems with the install or something of that nature...and that sucks and i feel for them...but that doesn't make the OS poor...something is wrong with their particular device...

it irks me when people are so quick to simply throw someone under the bus (Moto) instead of actually trying to understand what is going on...

Jim Dawson said:

Just a few of the things that really bother me and have started with the GB ugrade:

1.) Battery life significantly reduced.
2.) Camera defaults to wide screen.
3.) Camera ISO can no longer be set manually.
4.) Often the camera will not save a picture just taken. I have to turn the phone off/on to get the function back.
5.) Many apps, like TV guide, market, etc. take much longer to load.
6.) WiFi, if I leave the area and return, I have to turn off WiFi and back on again to get it to connect.
7.) Some times when I make a call all appears normal but the called party hears nothing. Requires a battery pull to fix it.
8.) Bluetooth would flawlessly connect to my Kenwood car unit both as a phone and media source. Now it always connects as media player but I have to turn the phone function off/on to get it to work.

The list is much longer. I had none of these problems prior to the GB upgrade and was one of the phone's biggest defenders.

Jim

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1. mine's exactly the same - ran your battery down to 0%, charged it to 100%, then wiped battery stats lately? or, is it possible that your 1 year old battery is going bad?

2. minor annoyance

3. could flash the old camera file to fix, possibly

4. SD card issue? I think I saw this on the Moto Forums, and the only fix was an SD card wipe

5. "Longer" - just curious, do you have a time comparison on this?

6. Try a wipe/reinstall

7. This happened on FroYo, and to me, actually, when I was on FroYo and flashing ROMs like crazy. see #6. only thing that fixed it.

8. this happens to mine - minor annoyance, but something I hope Moto addresses

hope that helps, sir

Droid_Badger said:

Helllo all,

Long time Android user and lover. Original Droid to Droid X. I love the customization. I love Swift Key, Google integration (Gmail, chat, navigation). I love being able to swap the battery. And in general, the phone is great.

But I am growing so angry at the lack of Motorola support, especially with the GB problems. How can they let such a simple thing, the camera 8MP/WS issue linger for so long?

And my phone, I cannot stand the inconsistency. I just want my damn phone to work. I know, I know, it's likely the price I pay for customization. But I haven't rooted my phone. I am not running abnormal applications. I just want the phone to work and not freeze, or reboot, or get ridiculously slow.

Is iOS better for me? I love how it just *works*. Sometimes with Android I feel as if I am a slave to the phone. I constantly have to be tweaking and resetting and dealing with bad apps and all sorts of maintenance. Is it too much to ask for the phone to just *work*?

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I was literally thinking the exact same thing for me. Same phone, same scenario, same everything. As for what im going to do, i will probably wait until the Bionic and the iPhone 5 (or 4s) come out, and compare the two. My deciding factor is 4g, and flash player. Even thought the iPhone is said to not be given 4g LTE support, i did read somewhere that flash player might be available, which would pretty much make my descion. I have learned a lot about technology through 2 years of android, but now i think i might move on, because even though ive learned, ive spent HOURS. I think its time for my phone to just take care of itself, without me having to constantly tweak and monitor it. On the other hand, if the Bionic blows every other phone out of the market like people say it will, maybe i will stick with Android. That's just my opinion, and since we are in the same situation, i hope it help!

Metsfan67 said:

I was literally thinking the exact same thing for me. Same phone, same scenario, same everything. As for what im going to do, i will probably wait until the Bionic and the iPhone 5 (or 4s) come out, and compare the two. My deciding factor is 4g, and flash player. Even thought the iPhone is said to not be given 4g LTE support, i did read somewhere that flash player might be available, which would pretty much make my descion. I have learned a lot about technology through 2 years of android, but now i think i might move on, because even though ive learned, ive spent HOURS. I think its time for my phone to just take care of itself, without me having to constantly tweak and monitor it. On the other hand, if the Bionic blows every other phone out of the market like people say it will, maybe i will stick with Android. That's just my opinion, and since we are in the same situation, i hope it help!

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the iPhone 4s or iPhone 5 will NOT have Flash support...you can pretty much take that one to the bank...Apple HATES Flash...they don't even want it on the desktops and laptops anymore...

if the web didn't contain so much flash Apple would probably remove flash support from OSX altogether!