[Atrix 4G General] guitarded068:
Hey guys. Here's an informative article I found while reading the news today that the Samsung Galaxy S will not receive ICS. Many users in this thread have been blaming Motorola and AT&T for the EOL we're anticipating for the Atrix. The real problem, however, is bigger than these two corporations as we can see with the news about the SGS.

Why Android updates are a mess: it's the business model

SirFork has already touched on this issue earlier in this thread:

If you read and understood the above article, it's easy to understand why AT&T and Motorola behave this way. In fact, I think it's a pretty brilliant way of making money, especially with so many naive tech geeks desperately trying to remain at the constantly accelerating cutting edge of mobile technology. I'm particularly referring to those suckers who have purchased a SGSII or other marginally improved device within six months of purchasing their Atrix :p (no offense to those guys, but you have to admit that it's hasty and shortsighted to jump ship when our Atrix is still a great device in the grand scheme of things).

The take home message from this article, at least for me, is that the tradeoff between Android's openness and customizability with official manufacturer and carrier support is inherently unbalanced and is now very apparent with the delayed/denied update of many capable devices to ICS. This creates more problems than it solves, even for our brilliant developers who do a lot to improve our device's functionality. Ultimately, development still relies heavily on the support of the OEMs for major updates, and if this basic necessity is crippled, then so is my satisfaction with the future of Android. I'm still all for hacking my device in order to make it uniquely my own and try some experimental features, but there comes a point where it suffices to just use your damn phone. Even if the Atrix never sees an official ICS release from Motorola (CM9 would be very much welcome though), I'm completely content with what we already have in the development forum, especially Neutrino. Even if it's no longer the most popular dev supported device with the best hardware specs, I can't image there being anything that our Atrix can't do what we need it to do for a long time to come. Once you realize this, you'll get a lot more out of our awesome device than having the latest and greatest (the dissatisfaction with the latter will come at only increasing rates), and you'll cease to be the predictable consumer statistic that the Android business model has parameterized you to be.

My unrelated further conclusion after a year of hacking at the Xperia X8 and Atrix:

Unless the Android business model changes in the next year, my next device will be a Windows phone. If you haven't tried one recently, I highly recommend it. The selection of devices and adherance to programming standards from hardware and software perspectives, respectively, is a really nice blend of the Android and Apple design philosophies. The user experience, however, is something else entirely, and I was blown away by its freshness, intuitiveness, and seamlessness. It's completely different from how you use iOS and Android, and that alone is enough to put superb hardware specs and the freedom of hacking and customization at second and third on the list of features I want out of my next phone. The meticulous effort in the design and functionality of Mango WP7 leads to a user experience that no amount of hacking, customization, and performance boosting on Android can ever achieve for me now, though I try on my Atrix! I was already so satisfied with the way that stock WP7 ran on my brother's HTC Titan that the fun of improving any future stock Android device I purchase now seems more like a chore. With that burden lifted from my shoulders, I'll have more time to follow more productive and interesting pursuits! Win-win. Anyways, I'll still always have my Atrix if I feel the need to play around with those things. I know this isn't the place to endorse Windows phones, but I just wanted to provide an alternative solution to unhappy Atrix users thinking they'll be happier getting the latest Android phone, or even worse, switching to iPhone!

:D