Motorola CEO Apologizes for Moto X Cyber Monday Site Outage

Tech By on Dec 3, 2013

Those of you hoping to get the $349 Moto X on Cyber Monday instead received a full day of site outages and fail. It’s like Motorola’s site saw the upcoming onslaught of customers, curled up into a ball and whimpered ‘no mas’. The well-received phone was set for a huge Cyber Monday discount of $150, bringing the contract-free versions of the 16gb and 32gb phones down to a respective $349 and $399. Great deal considering the specs.

Unfortunately, much like many of your hopes and dreams, it was not meant to be. However, props to Motorla for realizing their situation and correcting it. Their CEO, Dennis Woodside, came out today and issued an explanation and apology for the Cyber Monday snafu.

“I want you to understand what happened, and what we are doing to rectify the situation.”

“First, we misjudged the overwhelming consumer demand for Moto X, which was far greater than we expected.”

“Second, our pre-sale site testing was not sufficiently extensive. Testing failed to reveal weaknesses caused by large volumes of concurrent orders flowing through the MotoMaker customization engine.”

“Thus, when we opened the promotion this morning, an extraordinary spike in concurrent orders caused our website to go down. We couldn’t fulfill orders. The site became unstable. While some orders were filled, many customers tried all day to place their orders, unsuccessfully. Customers were left frustrated.”

They’ve decided to reschedule their promotion and add an additional day to buy, doubling the number of devices for sale (although how many is uncertain) and extending their 30% accessories sale.

So for all you Moto X fans out there, you’ll have twice the number of chances to score a great phone at a great price.

We reached out to Motorola for a technical explanation on the site outages, but didn’t receive any response at this time.

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Motorola Project Ara: One Phone For Life?

Tech By on Oct 31, 2013

Isn’t buying a new smartphone every couple of years a little silly? Yes it is. Motorola’s Project Ara, an open-source initiative for modular smartphones, aims to take the current “new every two” mentality and kinda flip it on its consumerist head. Motorola is envisioning a future where your phone’s endoskeleton, or basic layout, would never change. Of course the phone’s components could be upgraded at any time; like say, you could get a new processor or even a new display. Whaddya think? Do you have that kinda willpower?

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Moto X: Specs Shmecs

Tech By on Aug 18, 2013

The smartphone battlefield is filled with combatants engaged in a war of the specs. But is the winner of the ‘my processor/screen/battery is bigger than yours’ contest really the best device? Motorola says no. The Moto X ($200) consciously stays out of the specs fray and instead focuses on customization and other perks. You can design your own phone, choosing everything from the color to the texture, with some 504 combinations possible. Touchless Control lets you control the phone with voice commands.  There’s a 4.7-inch AMOLED screen, Snapdragon S4 Pro 1.7 GHz processor, and 10 MP Clear Pixel camera, and while none of those numbers are class-leading, it’s somewhat refreshing to see a phone that doesn’t pretend it’s carrying a bazooka when it’s armed with a trusty rifle.

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Motorola’s MotoACTV

Gear By on Oct 19, 2011

Let’s say you run. How do you keep track of your progress? Your clunky 4.5″ smartphone that bangs around in your pocket. That iPod strapped to your arm. Maybe it’s the Nike+, the one with the sensor on your shoe beaming signals to the…iPod strapped to your arm. Come November 6th, Motorola brings convenience to the exercise junkie with the MotoACTV.

Strap on the MotoACTV to your wrist and capture your activity with the integrated GPS. Measure your success, record your runs and even monitor your heart rate with the separate in-ear heart rate monitor. All this housed in one tiny, Nano sized device built for exercise. That means splashproof and scratchproof Gorilla Glass as used on Motorola’s Droid RAZR.

Beyond just recording your fitness, the MotoACTV creates custom playlists based on your fitness patterns and history. That means music tailored to those days you might sprint, jog or need a little extra oomph. All customized on your past activity, and not created beforehand. After your workout, sync the MotoACTV to the MotoACTV portal and check out the requisite graphs and analysis. Battery life is adequate at 10 hours indoors and 5 hour outdoors, when GPS is used.

Choose from 8GB ($250) and 16GB ($300) models. Open the wallet a little more for the $100 heart heart rate monitor, though that can be used with any Moto phone. While the 8GB and 16GB MotoACTV models run twice the price of the respectively sized Nanos, the Nano’s capabilities in the gym are likely an afterthought to its buyers. For exercise junkies, the MotoACTV will be a dedicated device for their training.

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