More Reading

Post navigation

224 Comments

  • well im just gonna put this here because im not reading all 210+ comments…

    i think this is all about the “android @ home” movement. and android open handset alliance… or something like that(?) now they have a legitimate hardware company to work with

  • I Can’t care less about the hardware division of Motorola Mobility. This is all about patents. Motorola has been in wireless for 80+ years. Plus, they are being sued by Microsoft over something related to mobile.

    I have 3 words for Google: FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!

    I hope this move does not burn bridges with the other Android hardware vendors.

    What happens next? Microsoft buys Nokia?

  • Thinking back, I wonder now how long this has been in the works.  Could this have been the reason Moto Mobility split off from Motorola to begin with, as preparation to be sold off?

    • No, that split was long before android, it was to save moto as a whole, because they were losing money on V3 clones. Moto as a whole would have gone down the tubes because of mobility losses at that time.

    • And also, if we look at closely at the Nortel auction, I think Google already had its sights at Motorola Mobility before then. What “Rockbid Co” did unknowingly was to put Google in a great position to push through with this acquisition. When regulators step in, all they will see is a company trying to defend its OS from litigation. But most of all, this betters the ecosystem and enhances competition!   

  • This is one hell of a shock to start the week.  I, too, wonder if this will mean the end of Blur, locked moto bootloaders, and Jha.  Maybe another delay for the Bionic while Google de-blurs it?  LOL

  • I just paìd $22.85 for an ìPad 2-64GB and my girlfriend loves her Panasonic Lumix GF 1 Camera that we got for $38.78 there arriving tomorrow by UPS. I will never pay such expensive retail prices in stores again. Especially when I also sold a 40 inch LED TV to my boss for $625 which only cost me $62.81 to buy. Here is the website we use to get it all from, CentHub.còm

  • I just heard this on NPR at work and did a total double take. 

    Cool.  Can’t wait to see what’s going to happen. 

  • I guess this makes sense.  The only company left to buy would have been HTC, and they’re relatively profitable. Moto has been leaking $$$ which lead to their split in the first place.  Now to see what Google does with this.

  • Its awesome they’ve bought Moto Mobility both for Android OS AND how Moto implements it into there products but it also shows how sad the US Patent System is.

  • I just hope it means that updates to software/fixing bugs will be ready and approved quicker than Motorola devices currently are.

  • I like this because of 1 main reason….Now with apple going after Moto because of the Xoom now apple will be in a direct fight with Google. With Google’s and Moto’s direct patents and assets, this may be the move to slow down or even stop the Apple litigation train.

  • I am so glad that heart attack didn’t kill me last month… just so I can see this come to fruition. 😉  (after it’s done, though, I gotta watch out)

  • Pinky: Gee, Brain, what do you want to do tonight?Brain: The same thing we do every night, Pinky – try to take over the world!

  • This is great news, now the most software engineers can devote themselves to do that develop awesome software (android) and awesome hardware engineers can devote themselves EXCLUSIVELY to develop the most awesome phone hardware available. Yes Win-Win!

  • Guys moto will still be its own company. This doesnt mean Vanilla or end of blur. This was done to protect against apples sue everyone project.

  • I’m commenting to let you be aware of what a extraordinary encounter my wife’s girl had reading through your blog. She came to understand many details, which included what it’s like to have an ideal helping character to have other individuals really easily grasp certain problematic issues. You really did more than our own expectations. Thanks for churning out such great, dependable, explanatory not to mention cool guidance on this topic to Emily.

  • Am I reading this correctly?  This is an important move for Google as well as Android as a whole.  Google said that they were prepared to deal with all of the patent lawsuits and now its time to fight FIRE WITH FIRE!!!

    • More likely sprint…But this is good for verizon because motorola loves verizon and verizon loves motorola so hopefully we can get a pure experience one of these years

  • I love this part of the article

    Andy Rubin still expects the Nexus series to be a competition between manufacturers.  Just because they own Motorola now, doesn’t mean that every new Nexus device will be from Moto.  They will have to compete along with HTC, Samsung, LG, etc. to put together a phone that Google would be proud to brand as a Nexus.

    • Yeah, imagine how proud they would be if their own company couldn’t produce the best phone for that competition.

      • This is pretty bad to have to read two different articles to get the whole story.

        Engadget has different info, and Droid Life has different info.  combine the two and you get the whole story, unless theres another site out there that skewed the info too?

  • So does this mean I should try to hold onto my OG Droid just a few more months? I don’t want to be stuck with a Bionic when the first Motogoogle phone comes out.

  • It’s just me and Sweet Dee(X) until about June of 2012.  I’ll be very interested to see what the Android world looks like in 9-10 months…  I’m actually glad I don’t have an upgrade… it lets me sit back and watch.

    • I updgraded to a DROID CHARGE from my DX but I should have waited because it wasnt that big of an upgrade 🙁

  • This is awesome moto thats why I stuck with you whats up people get some…Haters there is some room on this bandwagon

  • just awesome…that’s all i can say….Motorola was really starting to worry me and then they go and do something like this….and totally redeem themselves. Lets hope this deal results in some incredible new devices, though i cant imagine that it wouldn’t.

  • I just got an iPad2-32GB for $ 24.53 and my girlfriend loves her Dell laptop that we got for $ 35.46 there arriving tomorrow by UPS I will never pay such expensive retail prices in stores again. Especially when I also sold a 42 inch LED TV to my boss for $ 655 which only cost me $ 61.79 to buy.Here is the website we use to get it all from, GrabРenny.com

  • Things will definitely be changing in the Mobile world. Goodbye Windows phone, ta ta Apple…..

    I expect Android will do to the mobile market what Windows did to the personal computing market…

  • Now what to do …Wait for the Vigor or give in and get the Bionc incase this google / motorola partnership turn out to mean more updates on the moto phones

  • I’m reading more of your comments and I’m asking you to please refrain from being so confrontational. I won’t moderate you yet but please allow everyone to have opinions just as you do. Thank you. 🙂

  • Steve Jobs will claim that buying up other companies is a process proprietary to Apple…and he’ll sue.

  • Very nice. I don’t think the upcoming Nexus is going to be made by Motorola, but imagine the next next Nexus. With Google owning Motorola they can work much more closely optimizing the OS.

    And I really, really hope this means we get at least SOME Blurless phones. Or at least that Blur improves with support from Google.

  • Good news for people getting the Bionic, should get timely updates and maybe one day no blur. Could be support just as strongly as the og droid.

  • I strongly believe that this has nothing to do with a hostile takeover and everything to do with arming themselves for a patent war with Apple/Microsoft/RIM/Nokia, etc.. 
    If what they say is believed to be true, then Motorola will keep churning out Blur phones. 
    The only way to “supercharge” Android is by packing patent grenades and machine gun that shoots 17000 patents a minute to anyway who gets in the way.. 

    • Except now they can request more closely assistance with its software.  Blur can be improved upon.

      But this transaction is definitely so Google can protect Android in the upcoming legal battles.  This probably also means those comments Jha said a few weeks ago about them “wanting to get into the Windows Phone market”  probably won’t happen now lol.This is a big victory for Android thanks to these patents.If Google can help Moto improve on the phones it churns out with Blur or a better UI, i’m all for it
      and who knows, maybe the Bionic was delayed till September because of this transaction that was coming up.  By federal law because of stock and all that, its illegal to talk about such transactions outside of the company or outside of a meeting.but I guess we’ll see,  but clearly the Bionic does NOT have stock Android, we all saw what it has from those pics when the Moto rep brought it to the stores to show the employees.

      • I agree! Comparing Blur to stock vanilla android, I’d have to say that Blur does add some decent polishing and functionality to their phones, even if it’s not pretty sometimes. Collaboration in this case is better than competition. And in the end, hopefully the best outcomes are for consumers! 

  • Holy patent lawsuit blockers Batman!!!!!…watch out Apple, Andy Android’s 3laws don’t apply to fruit…. dumbasses…. LMAO

  • So the obvious questions here are: What does this mean about the openness of future Motorola devices (will they be unlocked or capable of being unlocked like the Nexus line)? What does it mean, if anything, for current Motorola devices that are locked down? And does this mean all future Motorola devices will be vanilla Android? Is this the death of Blur?

    • OLD ONES WILL HAVE BLUR AND MAYBE STARTING WITH THE BIONIC THEY ALL BE VANILLA ANDROID OR THEY WILL MAKE BLUR SO NICE WITH THE HELP OF GOOGLE THAT WE WILL LOVE IT

    • I doubt Blur is going anywhere.  Sounds like Motorola will continue to do what they have been doing while Google uses their patent portfolio in court.

  • LIKE I SAID BEFORE JUST WAIT TILL MOTO DO SOMETHING SPECIAL AND ALL THE HATERS OF MOTO WILL BE KISSING ASS LOL STUPID TROLLERS . MOTO WINS AGAIN GOOGLE KEEP WINNING OUR HEARTS 🙂 BRING IT ON NESUS MADE BY MOTO LOL

  • I think we’re missing the real value to us, the death of DROID.

    This could be a game changer if Google has Moto put out Android phones that can function multi-carrier (all LTE bands) with no bloat built in as they don’t need the ad money.  That’s even more exciting than vanilla.  That will force the US carriers to compete harder as it’ll just require a sim card change to move on instead of a new phone.

    • Droid was brilliant… but I agree, it’s served its purpose.  Samsung now has set the bar even higher, by doing one simple thing… creating a global brand in the Galaxy S name, and selling them like crazy.

        • Samsung sells more than 1 device… the difference is… they have a big brand name that sells more than any other Android device.  Selling the same brand named phone on every carrier it comes to it a huge advantage…

    • I do agree with you these people always crying about vanilla this and vanilla that the new blur is nice and i want them to enhance it not to get rid of it and that will be sweet it will make verizon a hard time if they do that imagine the bionic on sprint with lte and the sprint plan 🙂

      • This is what I said to another commenter on Engadget about the different UI’s.

             Definitely unexpected, maybe they can get rid of blur and improve on the UI entirely.  Blur exists for a reason, just like Sense, and TouchWiz.  It sets the products apart beyond specs.  So I would not be surprised if they keep blur and improve on it now that they got Google to help with the OS and its UI.  I think this proves they will more than likely have one of the first ICS devices.

      • But these are done for the subsidized/joint marketing.  Others have put out one phone where for Moto it’s on every phone.  Verizon won’t put money behind (or DROID name on) a phone that can go to another carrier.  Yes HTC or Samsung could step up to provide dedicated Verizon DROID phones but I don’t think they want to.  They have shown they want to keep their own branding on their flagship phones.  So hopefully we see a future of Android phone capable of being multi-carrier.

        • HEYHEYHEY. Don’t upset my baby. I should have stayed with my DX and waited it out. DAMMIT. I MISS MY DROID X :(:(:(:(

    • Except, non of this is true.  It has already been stated that VZW and at&t LTE will be running on different bands (and most likely so will LightPeak), so that dream of just swapping out the SIM… still a dream.

      • You are aware that multi-band phones exist now for 3G.  Even Verizon offers international Android phones with multi-bands.  It’s a matter of time and money before they exist for 4G.

        • Yup, I am aware of such things.  BUT, with VZW making it clear that “right now” there won’t be phones that can handle both, you can be fairly certain that the number of phones that will be able to do this will be SEVERELY limited, and most likely not coming from any vendor that actually does business with VZW. (In other words, if they want to sell their subsidized handsets through VZW, they will agree NOT to make such a phone).

          Will it come?  Probably at some point… but for now, it is still “wishful thinking”

          • If Apple can force it onto Verizon I can’t see Google not being able to do it.  However even if they don’t its not a big deal.  As long as it runs on those bands you can buy it direct from Moto/Google and buy a sim from Verizon. Problem solved.  With the purchase of the LTE spectrum the clauses for competition by the FCC were put in for such scenarios.

            I agree it isn’t something happening this year, maybe not next but it’s good to see the possibility of change on the horizon.  Especially since no OEM currently is trying to stand up to the carriers.

  • im so haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaappppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  • bullshit on the whole “Nexus won’t necessarily be a moto device” talk… that’s just Google saying the right things today when they have no intention of doing that.

    • should we get bionic stock or nesus prime stock we have options now i do love my new blur i hope they put the best software now

  • It will be interesting to see how HTC and Samsung react to now having a vertically integrated competitor.

    • Samsung will probably make their phone paper thin…and HTC…….will probably make their batteries worse…lol…

  • If Larry were smart it would contain a Jha removal clause, I’m sure the dev comunity would pay to get him outta there…

    I think it’s a patent protection thing, moto will keep running, hopefully though Larry can pressure to unlock them even harder.

  • Another Droid Bionic delay will be WELL worth it if it were to have stock Android on it, but I am still half asleep so I’m probably dreaming. :[

  • Hopefully Google takes peices of Motoblur & applies them to stock Such as the widgets & cool 3d like effects of the D3 if they can fix the little lag. Also maybe if Motorola makes Nexus Prime we can get a laptop dock but this time with Google Chrome. Hopefully unlocked bootloaders for all.

    • THAT IS WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN MOTO WANTS TO BRING PEOPLE
      TOGETHER BY CONECTING THEM WITH SOCIAL NETWORKING AND WIDGETS GOOGLE WILL MAKE
      IT BETTER WITH ANOTHER NAME BUT WE WILL STILL HAVE THE AWESONESS FROM BOTH
      PARTIES MOTO AND GOOGLE

    • SHUT UP YOU ARE ANOTHER TROLLER FROM BEFORE LOL I TOLD ALL OF YOU THAT MOTO ONCE AGAIN WAS GOING TO WIN

    • There has already been one of those.  It is the favorite of most on this forum.  The innovator AKA the OG Droid.

      • I FEEL DROID ONE REVOLUTIOZED ANDROID BUT IT IS NOT THE BEST ANDROID PHONE THE BEST ANDROID STILL DROID X BEFORE THE DROIDX2 CAME OUT

      • AND THE PHOTON 🙂 AND THE ATRIX 🙂 AND KIND OF THE DX,D2,D2G,DX2 and whatever else 2nd-init gets on. But the atrix and photon are fully unlocked

      • ya i know i own one and its still my everyday phone. my faithful og. but there hasnt been one on verizon since, thats why i said it

    • MAYBE 🙂 MOTO GOT SERIOUS MAN LOVING IT WHERE ARE THE TROLLERS FROM THIS FORUM THEY ARE HIDING LIKE RABBITS

  • Haha, I was just gonna email you about this story.
    Hope this means Motorola will again make a vanilla android phone like the one that started all this.

      • No but it left your battery with more juice and it didnt lag the phone down like a hippo on a bicycle

      • The Motorola Droid didn’t come with any Blur skin overlay.  I did have FB and Twitter on my OG Droid.  Now I have the DX, while I am very happy with the DX, I’m not happy with all the bloatware that came with Blur.  That’s one of the difference’s between “vanilla” Android and what is now being put onto phones.  Take a look at all the comments on this blog post.  A lot of them have to do with getting rid of Blur.  

  • Now, can Jha, and unlock those glorious pieces of hardware.

    In My only thought is while Google chose to grab it, being they do make great hardware (it’s just they delay it until it is no longer “Groundbreaking” at release time) now you have Google in direct competition withother manufacturers (HTC, Samsung).

    I suppose we’ll have to see how the deal is actually arrainged, Google managed, or overseeing it, and nothing changes other than they now have more pull to approve/dissaprove items moto places on the units.

      • You can say it, and say it, and say it… they aren’t listening anyway.  You are right… but Blur bashers are going to continue to trash it… true or not.

      • I know it’s a tough economy right now, but honestly, anyone that was working on Blur shouldn’t have a job anywhere near technology.

        • When you think about the rigorous interview process Google has for its software people, you really have to wonder if Moto’s software people have a future in the company.

          • You honestly believe all those engineers are idiots because you don’t like the UI?

          • No they are idiots because they create flawed software. It’s not a matter of preference. Its a matter of teh Blur software overlay not working correctly.

        • I know it’s a bit weird but you probably haven’t read the source for AOSP. Honestly, some parts are as scary as Blur.

          I wouldn’t say that Motorola’s programmers are the sole target for blame.

      • Don’t be so sure. “‘Supercharge’ the OS” is a fancy way of saying “FIX YER SH*T MOTO”.

        • Motorola needs something that makes its phones look “different”. That something is Blur. Why would they go vanilla AOSP when they are staying a separate business that has to compete with others?

          • “Different” is not supposed to be synonymous with “bad.” That’s the mistake that Motorola has been making with Android since the Devour.

          • Going vanilla WOULD be different. No OEM is putting out high-quality stock devices except the nexus series, which is now a generation behind in both wireless technology and processor speed.

            I don’t expect anything to change in the short term, but in the mid-to-long term, I would expect the good parts of blur to be pulled into Android proper and optimized, and the rest of it to get discarded.

          • When EVERYONE else is putting out their own interface, Moto going to vanilla AOSP WOULD be new.  WOULD be different.  WOULD make Moto EXTREMELY attractive to people like us.

          • When EVERYONE else is putting out their own interface, Moto going to vanilla AOSP WOULD be new.  WOULD be different.  WOULD make Moto EXTREMELY attractive to people like us.

      • No company buys another to do nothing with it.  It just doesn’t happen.  I’m not going to make a bet on Blur’s future, but that’s standard response to try and ease shareholder, employee and partner anxiety.

    • Somebody give this guy a plaque or a trophy that says “most epic comment of the year”

    • I think they should cancel the Bionic and make it plain Vanilla Android to celebrate.

  • MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. & LIBERTYVILLE, Ill. – Aug. 15, 2011 – Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) and Motorola Mobility Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: MMI) today announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Google will acquire Motorola Mobility for $40.00 per share in cash, or a total of about $12.5 billion, a premium of 63% to the closing price of Motorola Mobility shares on Friday, August 12, 2011. The transaction was unanimously approved by the boards of directors of both companies.

  • It sounds like it could be the best thing ever. Here’s to hoping it turns out that way!

  • Soooo next Nexus is Moto made….

    Let’s hope this spells the end of locked bootloaders and blur.

Comments are closed.

Related Posts

back to top