[Motorola Photon 4G] jorjitoc:
I don't disagree that we have every reason to be disgusted with how long we've had to wait for ICS on the Photon - I said as much. I think my point is valid, however, that Samsung is in a much better position than Motorola has been over the last 12-18 months clearly. Samsung is printing money and apparently have a much better relationship with Sprint. Great, there are leaks of ICS Roms out there for the GS2, but just as many officially released ICS or JB Roms for the Sprint (or Verizon) GS2 as there are for the Photon. Motorola has released a schedule stating they would release ICS as early as next month, same as Samsung. Do I think Sprint is to blame in all this as well? Absolutely. All the carriers are. How does Apple manage to release iOS updates without carrier approval and in a timely manner but Samsung and Motorola do not? Why does the iPhone 3GS have the latest version of iOS but the Epic 4G runs Gingerbread and always will (and Droid phones on Verizon as well)? We are fooling ourselves if we think Samsung is doing any better than the others save Apple. Custom Roms are custom roms and so are leaks. They aren't fully functioning, officially supported firmwares for our phones. So my discussion is not about what third party or ported leaks are out there. It's about the manufacturers supporting the phones through the carriers in the same environment that Apple functions in, but somehow does a better job.

I am not a Samsung basher. My wife and I just bought GS3's (she's on AT&T and OMG the speeds are fast) this past weekend because I gave up on ICS for the Photon, wanted LTE capability and didn't like the iPhone 5 still having 16GB in the base model and no SD card. I also think the screen is too small. I think it is a fantastically engineered phone with better build quality than any other phone - it just doesn't suit my needs. The Photon Q is a step backwards, I think. Who wants a clunky keyboard slider with qHD resolution? I went in with eyes open, though. I figure I'll get JB on my GS3 and any other updates after that will be gravy with no expectations on my part that it will ever get another update. In my mind my only other choice was the HTC EVO LTE and I just felt like as poorly as it was selling that I would be jumping into the same situation I had with the Photon - great phone but no support due to slow sales, etc.

I do think Google wants to make Motorola set the example for the other manufacturers and going forward I really expect Motorola to provide much more timely updates for their phones. Maybe I was snowed by the speech their new CEO gave at the RAZR HD unveiling but it felt like they had a new attitude. They have already released phones with unlockable bootloaders and developer editions and that is a major shift in philosophy for them. They do make high quality phones. If this new guy takes them in the direction I think he is then I think Motorola is going to have some really good phones going forward.

That's just my take on things and my opinion. I don't work for Apple, Motorola, Google or Samsung. I have no proprietary interest in any of this. I'm not posting this to argue or flame anyone - just joining the discussion and pointing out some things that I think are/were missed in the discussion.