Can't say I'm shocked. The team has moved on to another project and they are offering refunds for the Indiegogo backers.
Update: I submitted a refund request via email the day of the update and I received my refund this morning. Very happy with the quick turn around.
Posted Sep 12, 2018, 10:08 PM UTC · edited
I like the idea of the moto-mods. I wish there was more support. There was an idea for a moto-mod that I wanted to develop for a niche audience, but I couldn't see it working. A niche audience for a phone that has a small niche market itself.
The thing is a stellar unique mod for a certain industry could actually help lock those in that industry to the Moto line.
Like this vaporware https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/vital-moto-mod-launch/
Good job Motorola, I guess once my Z^2 dies, I'm done with them.
I may roll the money into the "Q-Phone" if it has good specs and carrier support, I need a freakin qwerty phone.
It's crazy they made a huge deal about the Mod the Smartphone challenge and none of them were ever released. Moto should have just bought the popular ones and produced them 1st party.
I heard it was actually Motorola that made it hard for all these third party projects to succeed.
Moto had a plan that sounded really good, initially. They weren't expecting indies to produce mods all by themselves, they supposedly set aside $1,000,000 to help finance winners of the IGG challenge. Then things got absurd. We all originally thought that success in IGG campaigns would at least be a big factor in winning the Transform contest and financing. We were very wrong.
Moto chose as winners of the first challenge two odd mods with virtually no supporters, no progress and no idea how to even get started. Keep in mind that there were two clear frontrunners in terms of support and prototyping, the keyboard mod which beat everyone else combined and the Edge notification mod, both of which progressed in design and production and both of which could have produced a mod with just a tiny helping hand.
The first winner was Digiframe, an eink based post-it replacement mod. I kid you not. I'd love an eink screen for reading myself, but this was deeply limited to replace post-its, only brief messages could be displayed through their proprietary widgets, and they had no plan for how to make it and no indication that anyone wanted one. And 2) the other winning mod was some under-defined hifi audio mod with professional port inputs and outputs. Neither project was heard from much before 'winning', nor after. If I had to guess, they never got a penny, and AFAIK no indie mod ever did. This effectively murdered the campaign which was supposed to repeat yearly. No hardware maker wanted to partner with such a crazy company as Moto, and no backer wanted to count on an indie to be able to overcome having Moto as a partner.
That wasn't the end of the problems, but I won't try to describe the others as few are confirmable, but from what I saw through both public news reports and back channel conversations, Moto was aggressively incompetent and ambivalent. There were some moto employees trying to get things done, but even they appeared to to have to swim against the currents inside the company to just execute Motorola's original indie mod plan. Really, the outcome of the first transform the smartphone challenge tells you everything you need to know. Moto set aside enough resources, had a good plan, but the will and competence to carry it out was not in place.
Really, the outcome of the first transform the smartphone challenge tells you everything you need to know.
No transform the smartphone challenge this year or any year ever in the foreseeable future.
Let's face it. Mod is dead. 5G is the last piece of shit mod Moto will produce and they will call it a day.
Well that's the final nail in the coffin. The team probably will say "Fuck Motorola" and never get near any one of their products ever again most likely.
My sympathies to the team for at least trying. Seriously, they really seemed like they give a shit about their product, unlike Moto who's only focused on 5G mod. Yeah Moto, this is what we all asked for when we wanted more variety mods. An ugly fucking fatass mod that people can give two shits about.
Damn, it was the mod I wanted the most.
I know. I wanted to buy it too
I did buy it, and this guy did all the work even.
Second time Motorola has screwed me on a phone platform, hard.
Pretty cool they're able to offer refunds. It's not like the money hasn't been spent, in fact, I suspect they've spent far more than they raised trying to build this. Compared to hardware crowdfunds globally, very classy.
Ah, Motorola. You had a pretty good thing, and I'm not just talking about this mod, but you sure bludgeoned it all to death. You earned some goodwill, and then you lit it on fire. I still think there were high ranking moto peeps opposed to Z from the outset looking for ways to sabotage it and move on to a different flagship scheme. Can't explain the bipolarity of it all any other way.
This is Lenovo's fault. For whatever reason, most likely not having to spend for marketing or developing two brands simultaneously. They are slowly killing off Motorola. Chinese conglomerates still don't understand branding outside of China or the legitimate free market. They also seem to be totally indifferent to the perception of the quality of their products. Time after time this happens. Hides under desk as down vote cascade commences.
Not gonna downvote you, but that's not very persuasive. Lenovo bought and retains not only Thinkpad branding, but the Thinkpad keyboard that branding implies. And they've built a bit of an empire on it even while the laptop space contracted.
If this is coming from China rather than Chicago, which is anyone's guess, it's probably not for Lenovo's failure to understand the value of branding in general.
Lenovo bought and retains not only Thinkpad branding, but the Thinkpad keyboard that branding implies
Yeah, and they destroyed that keyboard too. Ever since the x30 models its been a chiclet monstrosity.
x270 has 1 of the worst trackpads ive evr used, incontrast to, along with how much better its kb is, how close the e6000 latitude line came to tht apple trackpad magic
There's no other laptop keyboard in existence today that I'd trade them for.
I'll believe it when I see the refund.
That's fair. Let us know how it goes?
Refund promptly received. I'll update the original post.
I will. I've already submitted through the email link.
I think it is better this way, with the future of the Z line and the mods platform uncertain, and the lack of support from Lenovo-rola.
F
F
Seemed too good to be true. Kept getting delayed over and over. :(
The keyboard mod is dead. Long live the keyboard mod!
How do I get a refund? I pre-ordered through indie gogo
IGG isn't for preorders, it's for backing projects and that usually entails accepting the risk of failure. Ordinarily, there would be no refund after they already spent all the backing money trying to build the product.
Surprisingly enough, however, Livermorium is offering either a discount on their upcoming Q phone or refund by paypal. Click the link in the op and follow instructions there.
They're making a phone tho? K
I had an Moto Z Force Droid and I did love that phone. However, I actually never even bought a single mod because they never released anything I wanted.
•Extended battery? My phone already lasted long enough it didn't need one. What did it have, 3400mah? More than enough.
•Hasselblad camera? Way to expensive and never read a positive review on it unless you need to zoom in on something. Plus the stock camera was great in my opinion.
•Speaker? I just used Bluetooth for at home and at work for actual stereo systems so never had a need.
•Projector? I just didn't make sense. Watch a movie with your phone on a wall? Then you can't respond to notifications or use your phone when it's on.
•Skins? I had a couple, but they didn't work with cases.
•everything else was just gimmicky
What I would have loved mods for:
•Moto Mod keyboard!! I would have loved it if it was executed correctly and actually happened!
•headphone jack mod- sometimes Bluetooth just isn't reliable and the dongle sucked
•wallet case or even a clip on skin with a card slot
•a rubber skin with the Moto dimple! I miss that from my og Moto X
•Extended memory mod. That would have been awesome! Throw a Terabyte on that thing and it could have a built in battery.
Again, loved the phone itself, the og shattershied worked great! But the mods available never did it for me. Could have been executed much better.
Hey at least they released a whole different assortment of mods back then. Now, we get almost nothing since they don't even give a shit.
i read the update, and i'm interested in the Q-phone, but I didn't see anywhere to sign up for updates on that
It says updates will be released on twitter. I'd recommend following https://twitter.com/chenliangchen and/or https://twitter.com/LivermoriumLtd
Thanks, just followed
Well, this tweet from Lenovo didn't age well. https://twitter.com/lenovo/status/960512784764203008?s=19
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Mods aren't popular. Too expensive and not really that practical. The only one l decent one is a battery. Just make a great unlocked phone
You need standout features to compete against Apple, Samsung, etc. Making a great unlocked phone doesn't cut it any more. The only reason I chose the Z2 Force is the mods and the price ($300 on Cyber Monday).
Yeah. You already have great unlocked phones from Samsung, Huawei, and OnePlus.
I think Motorola is being foolish to essentially abandon the Z line and the mods. It's unique and functional at a point in time when it's very difficult for a phone manufacturer to differentiate themselves. In a couple more years, mid priced phones will be bezel-less, have great displays and more the enough processing power. Youtube reviewers will be out of minutia to pick apart.
The mods could have been taken further and now maybe some other manufacturer will pick up on the idea.
The ROG phone looks nice. Has two dedicated USB-C ports sidebyside for mod attachments (3 USB-C total).
The ROG phone with the second screen dock is certainly interesting but according to https://www.slashgear.com/asus-rog-phone-and-all-accessories-come-in-a-suitcase-12545273/ the lowest spec phone is going to be ~900 USD with the accessories bundle another $1000 so ... $2000. That's a lot to swallow when the Moto Z Play was 250 USD and the keyboard 70...