Fuck you, Motorola.

Today's obscenity brought to you by Microsoft Paint.

Done. I’m done fucking around with Motorola. I’ll be the first to admit that I was one of the people that loved the Razr V3. I put that little aluminum clamshell through a lot and it kept working. As much as I loved that thing, everyone else hated it. I still don’t know why, but it was enough to make Motorola’s stock go down the poop tube. They start having a little success with Android and suddenly they’ve forgotten what it was like to have the sheer mention of their company name make people cringe. Well it’s coming back, fuckers. Get ready.

The biggest reason is their “Custom UI Skin”, MotoBlur. I put that in quotations for a reason. It’s not so much a custom skin as it is a generous smattering of fecal matter all over the goodness of Android. What does MotoBlur do, exactly? Well the answer depends entirely on who you ask. But since you’re reading my article, that means you asked me. And you know what that means? That means you’re getting my answer. Strap in kids, it’s time to unload some pent up frustration.

MotoBlur was originally conceived to make the device running it more social with little widgets and push notifications that keep you connected no matter where you are without compromising your privacy. Now that we’ve seen it in action we know that what it really does is take what should be a great piece of hardware and squeezes out a fat deuce where the software should be. Don’t ask me how the phones manage to run on soft-serve instead of software, it’s probably some crazy phone magic or something. Fuck, you ask a lot of questions.

I’m using a Droid X that is 100% stock. It has never been rooted, unlocked, unhinged, or anything out of the ordinary. Any time I install something that I don’t use anymore (app reviews, alternate browsers, etc), it gets promptly uninstalled. I always check the permissions of an application and make sure that they jive with what an application of that kind should need before I hit the final acceptance button. I shut down and restart my phone every other day because I understand that it is essentially a computer and the goddamn thing can’t run forever without taking a little break. I work with a lot of people that have Android devices; HTC Incredible, several flavors of Galaxy S, LG Ally, and even the original Droid. None of my co-workers have any of the problems I do. These problems that I have noticed with my phone have to be coming from somewhere, and the only explanation is Motorola’s UI shit skin.

The biggest issue that I have is the sluggishness that a 1GHz processor shouldn’t have. Opening the contacts list makes the system hang, and then I get to wait for the list to populate. The same thing happens when opening the app list and 80% of those were on there when I bought the phone! Press the home button to wake the phone, swipe my finger on the unlo… swipe my finger on the… swipe my finger GODDAMMIT!

Why would you do this to your customers? What’s the point of forcing them to use bullshit software skins when the stock UI works perfectly well? Yes, you distinguish yourself from other Android devices, but you do it by being terrible. Oh, and my favorite part has to be the encrypted bootloader. Personally I don’t care about the difficulty of rooting/unlocking the phone. But the idea of locking your shit down when you’re using Android, the OS that was lauded for being open, just reeks of douchebaggery. Everyone is swimming around in their sea of Open Source goodness and Moto comes in screaming “FUCK YOU, HAVE SOME BLUR! LOLOLOL”

As if that weren’t enough, we get this tablet monstrosity. It is pretty, isn’t it? I mean, as pretty as a big piece of glass can be, I suppose. But then you realize that even though you paid almost as much for it as a 64GB iPad you have no flash, your microSD card slot doesn’t work, you’ve got a proprietary charger (really? I thought we had moved past those), you have to send it back to Motorola for a week if you want LTE connectivity, you can’t opt out of the data plan, Sanjay Jha killed Santa and the Easter Bunny, you’re getting constant alerts about what’s going to work eventually when they get around to updating the software, and you’re probably going to get saddled with MotoBlur later.

Fuck you Mororola, and fuck you too Sanjay Jha. I’d rather staple my dick to the seat of a speeding motorcycle and then jump off of it than pay for another Motorola device.