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Let's be honest to ourselves here guys, out beloved Moto X Style was officially released in September which means this phone has now been out for at least 3 months and while all the effort that has since been put in this devices by key developers and people from day 1 up till now is very much appreciated and will continue to be appreciated, the development of this device compared to most flagships has been slow motion.
I am just trying to understand what the hell went wrong with this phone that made it end up with such super slow motion development, as when I originally bought the device I was thinking this phone would be at least in the top 20 most active phones on XDA development wise.
It had so much going for it, easy root, easy unlockable bootloader, a pretty much almost complete stock version of android, kernel sources released and motorolas good track record of updating their flagship phones in a timely manner and good hardware to accompany the great bloatware free stock software and a cheap price compared to some other flagships from other companies such as Samsung and Sony
With all this in mind I thought developers would flock to this device and we would have a massive development forum with loads of options between custom roms, mods, themes and other tweaks etc
But this is far from the case and I know the Nexus 6P being released probably had something to do with it, Still this should have been at least in top 20
At first I thought when Android 6.0 MM will be released development will increase then we needed the kernel sources as that was apparently not enough, then we had kernel sources but apart from 1 or 2 roms showing up being in alpha stages nothings changed too much.
This is such a disappointment to say the least.
If only I could understand why this is happening maybe something could be done to fix this or increase the development of this phone, I dont know maybe get some developers from the nexus 6p forums on here some how ...
Any ideas why this has happened and if anything can be done to increase development?
IS THERE ANY WAY WE AS A COMMUNITY CAN GET MORE DEVELOPERS TO WORK ON THIS DEVICE?
djsynth said:
If only I could understand why this is happening maybe something could be done to fix this or increase the development of this phone, I dont know maybe get some developers from the nexus 6p forums on here some how ...
Any ideas why this has happened and if anything can be done to increase development?
IS THERE ANY WAY WE AS A COMMUNITY CAN GET MORE DEVELOPERS TO WORK ON THIS DEVICE?
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I think it's due to a combination of factors, such as :
1) The popularity of the phone/ manufacturer. These figures show Lenovo/Motorloa in 5th place for sales, having a 3.7% market share in Q3 2015
2) The OS (Android) has improved a lot over recent years, to the extent where a lot of people (like me) are happy to stay with stock
3) With phones getting more expensive, more people are put off from unlocking their bootloader due to warranty issues
4) I'm no longer convinced about the benefits of custom ROMs - seems a lot of the time they break more things than they fix. Maybe a lot of other people now think the same.
5) Some apps, for example ones for mobile banking or subscrition TV & Video, will not work with a rooted phone.
In the past I've had various phones from various manufacturers, and I'd say if you get your kicks from installing custom ROMs, then buy a Nexus.
When i had the one plus one there were so many roms that was a brain storm... I prefer some and reliable roms than a plethora where you get confused!!!
2) The OS (Android) has improved a lot over recent years, to the extent where a lot of people (like me) are happy to stay with stock
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4) I'm no longer convinced about the benefits of custom ROMs - seems a lot of the time they break more things than they fix. Maybe a lot of other people now think the same.
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IMO you hit the nail on the head. I love this phone. I had the MXPE 2014 as well, was not a fan. Also owned the original, Loved it.
This MXPE has been great in imo, the lack of development has not been disappointing to me. The stock rom is really pretty good, there are minor tweaks that can be done but most can do these on their own.
I used to be a flash-aholic, but like @GretaLewd has stated...custom roms tend to break things. I'm more in favor of kernel development. But how many different kernels can you have? One way or another they'll be the same.
I also own a Nexus 6P, but my MXPE is my go to device.
I see users complaining about this phone constantly, I really don't think it matters what phone you put in the hands of those users...they would still find fault and complain.
Motorola and Lenovo did good by this device, I just hope they keep up with incrementals for a while.
Isn't the 64bit cpu reason because it takes more work to get cm/aosp roms?
Sent from my XT1575 using Tapatalk
Good thread. Would love to hear more thoughts
Sent from my XT1575 using Tapatalk
Ordered the device today. Hope slow development doesn't disappoint me on this device, as others have stated...
I have been using this device for 2 months now. I am happy with it an didn't face a single issue. I can do a little bit tweaking myself using Xposed.
So far the slow development doesn't bother me.
Only buy a device for what it can do out of the box, not what you hope it will be able to do with additional modding and development... Nothing else is guaranteed!
As it stands I'm very happy with my rooted stock Style, not need for custom roms.
chrisund123 said:
Only buy a device for what it can do out of the box, not what you hope it will be able to do with additional modding and development... Nothing else is guaranteed!
As it stands I'm very happy with my rooted stock Style, not need for custom roms.
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That's a good way to approach Android phones I suppose but I believe
it's still nice to buy a phone that's great out of the box and good development wise, usually flagships tend to have good development and then the mid range and low end phones tend to get smaller developments but I guess there's an exception to everything.
patt2k said:
Isn't the 64bit cpu reason because it takes more work to get cm/aosp roms?
Sent from my XT1575 using Tapatalk
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I doubt that's the reason since 64 Bit has been the standard since Lollipop and pretty much all the flagships have a 64bit cpu since the beggining of 2015 but that doesn't stop other development forums from flourishing.
GretaLewd said:
I think it's due to a combination of factors, such as :
1) The popularity of the phone/ manufacturer. These figures show Lenovo/Motorloa in 5th place for sales, having a 3.7% market share in Q3 2015
2) The OS (Android) has improved a lot over recent years, to the extent where a lot of people (like me) are happy to stay with stock
3) With phones getting more expensive, more people are put off from unlocking their bootloader due to warranty issues
4) I'm no longer convinced about the benefits of custom ROMs - seems a lot of the time they break more things than they fix. Maybe a lot of other people now think the same.
5) Some apps, for example ones for mobile banking or subscrition TV & Video, will not work with a rooted phone.
In the past I've had various phones from various manufacturers, and I'd say if you get your kicks from installing custom ROMs, then buy a Nexus.
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Thank you for your break down on your thoughts of the subject and I must admit you've mention some very valid points here especially Point 1,2 and 5 but I think out of all of these its Point 1 and 2 that are the most significant, I suppose Motorola have a really small market share explains the lack of adoption between developers when comparing to some of the more prominent manufacturers such as samsung.
and The Android Stock OS has improved significantly within the past couple of years adding some new features that previously people had to root their phones to acomplish such as full app permission controls and backing up app data which google does for you now.
You need to follow development before buying a device these days. i.e. always wait at least 1-2 months. If you follow the development forums you would get an idea if developers are interested in said device or not. I for one, bought it right after I found out that AICP (CM12) rom was being developed. I was interested in running CM13 instead of other AOSP variations. And before I got the device the first (almost daily driver) builds were already uploaded.
Once cm is solid quite a few roms will pop up. Won't be long now.
Official MM has only been out for our phone for a little over a month. give it some time it may pick up. either way it's still an awesome phone out the box... and as stated above, once CM13 is stable im sure we'll see some of the other custom ROMs that are based off it.
GretaLewd said:
2) The OS (Android) has improved a lot over recent years, to the extent where a lot of people (like me) are happy to stay with stock
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This is a great point, but I'd like to add that this is especially applicable to our MXPE. We're really close to stock as it is, so there's little motivation to go ROM to debloat like there is on Samsung, LG, and similar phones. On the flip side, we have a lot of really neat features (active display, approach, accelerator gestures, voice controls) that we would lose if we went ROM.
For me, these two points combine, leaving me with little motivation to ROM my phone, especially since I can could get most of the advantages of CyanogenMod with something like GravityBox, which will allow me to keep the Motorola features (I'm currently unrooted because of the warranty, but I'll be rooted in the future for sure) . Of course, these are my own personal opinions, but I suspect that they reflect at least some of the mindset of this community.
I agree with others, that custom roms are often more trouble than they're worth. The only reason to use them these days is if your device isn't going to be updated to the latest version of Android.
Ever since moto introduced 99% stock android + moto display, roms have been entirely unnecessary for me. I used to rom my phones to gain greater flexibility + customizability. Now that I have stock android + Xposed, I doubt I will ever flash another custom rom again.
I'm still waiting for custom super roms that will make this device best in the market. Why can we have a rom with 1080p display, tweak kernel with better control for heating issue for overall battery life and speed?
Sent from my XT1575 using XDA Free mobile app
The biggest issue is that developers don't support devices they don't own. With the launch of the nexus 6 (not the 6p) most developers got it and had no need to update to a y newer devices.
Also to the comment that all flag ships are 64 bit this is not the case. If you look the most popular devices as far as developers are concerned are non 64 bit.
Also as android matures you will see less and less roms. As it will be come harder. There are very few real development teams. Most are just kitchen sink roms. A base with tons of cherry picks and a new name. Nothing even worth looking at twice. But more developers are closing up the source of their projects because of these types of roms.
To be honest most users have no point in flashing roms. Only those that like the development side of it will continue to mod roms and flash things.
I am a moto g(2013) user and I found out that the development of moto g4/g4 plus,compare to the previous models,is extremely slow or even no significant progree at all.I wonder if it is the unpopularity of this device,or the difficulty in developing this devices from scratch.This bother me so much that I consider buying the moto g 2015 rather than this
Me too.. All moto g series phone are booting 7.0 but we are still way behind..
in my experience all of the moto series of devices have slower development. the G4 isn't a very popular phone for most devs, its a budget device. personally stock, rooted, elementalx and substratum are perfect for me right now. we should have android 7.0 by the holidays.
Why don't you develop some stuff instead? That way, we will have more things to flash.
fix-this! said:
in my experience all of the moto series of devices have slower development. the G4 isn't a very popular phone for most devs, its a budget device. personally stock, rooted, elementalx and substratum are perfect for me right now. we should have android 7.0 by the holidays.
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are substratum themes fully compatible? can i fully theme notifcation bar etc using substratum?
You want faster development? Buy an extra G4Plus and send it as a gift to a developer. I know a couple that took the task of developing CM13 for various phones because they got the devices free.
Hello,
I'm searching for a new phone and currently I ordered a OP3 but it takes a month to be delivered so I'm considering cancelling and getting the Axon 7 (Eu version).
The single most important thing is how ZTE supports the Dev community. Is the EU version unlockable right now? I've seen some guys saying it but it doesn't seem to be publically available right now? Can we expect ZTE to support CM devs so that it will run without major bugs? Oneplus also considers to help with camera drivers etc which is a huge plus, can we expect something similar from ZTE or will they just be like all the others? Also what other phone features will probably not be supported (fully) by AOSP roms? Will the quickcharge work? Will the Atmos stuff work?
If there is definitely a CM Rom coming to the Axon 7 and it will be working as Daily driver I will walk in a store tomorrow and buy it but I will definitely not do so if I will have to stay on stock rom, or the CM will suck.
Sorry if all of this sounds like I'm being hard on the device but after seeing how some companys patch their devices to **** (looking at you Samsung lel) I just can't stand phones without good custom rom support anymore
The unlock for the EU version is coming shortly. It has not arrived yet on a public release but will be in about a week! I can confirm this as they sent me an unlock early to test
ZTE is working with CM devs to bring CM to axon 7.
ZTE are always working on camera improvements.
Quickcharge will work, atmos should work.
I've only seen this and it doesn't look like Zte really cares about the custom developement: https://community.zteusa.com/thread/12243
SgtIcetea said:
I've only seen this and it doesn't look like Zte really cares about the custom developement: https://community.zteusa.com/thread/12243
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https://community.zteusa.com/message/53450#comment-53450
jyee is ZTE USA's Vice President of Technology or something like that.
I mean it does sound good but it has been two weeks since then and the Dev (Unjustified Dev) here in xda still speaks about reverse engineering. He even says: "Nope Cyngn Inc is closing down as far as I know. " and as far as I understood ZTE will only provide help to official Cyanogen Ports?
SgtIcetea said:
I mean it does sound good but it has been two weeks since then and the Dev (Unjustified Dev) here in xda still speaks about reverse engineering. He even says: "Nope Cyngn Inc is closing down as far as I know. " and as far as I understood ZTE will only provide help to official Cyanogen Ports?
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They're working on it: https://github.com/Hax-on
xtermmin said:
They're working on it: https://github.com/Hax-on
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Although I don't understand any of this, if it's actually what you say it is then it's definitely a proof of some sort. At least something is being worked on
SgtIcetea said:
I mean it does sound good but it has been two weeks since then and the Dev (Unjustified Dev) here in xda still speaks about reverse engineering. He even says: "Nope Cyngn Inc is closing down as far as I know. " and as far as I understood ZTE will only provide help to official Cyanogen Ports?
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Cyanogen Inc is not CyanogenMod...
Think about Cyanogen Inc like a closed door.
While CyanogenMod is an open Window.
But both are benefitting from each other.
Here is a quick google search:
http://www.androidauthority.com/cyanogenmod-cyanogen-os-differences-702198/
Also that Cyanogen Inc is closing down is just a rumor mill. What they actually did was to kick out some developers which were under Cyanogen Inc payroll. That of course pissed some devs off and it backfired in rumors.
But like I said ZTE doesn't provide any help to Cyanogenmod devs do they? That would be a major go for the oneplus 3, they even announced to support them with better camera code etc
Ok so cyanogenmod.org got all moto devices listed and they said moto g series getting cyanogen 14.1 but moto g4 plus not anywhere in cyanogenmod.org list:crying:
I hate unofficial buggy ROMs
mayank.bhola1 said:
Ok so cyanogenmod.org got all moto devices listed and they said moto g series getting cyanogen 14.1 but moto g4 plus not anywhere in cyanogenmod.org list:crying:
I hate unofficial buggy ROMs
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Official roms are buggy too if you ever tried nightlies or snapshots. And we will see, maybe official will come until cm statet it comes not
They didn't say all G family, they post this list:
falcon, peregrine, titan, thea, osprey
They are 1st 2nd and 3rd Gen.
FlaminisRex said:
They didn't say all G family, they post this list:
falcon, peregrine, titan, thea, osprey
They are 1st 2nd and 3rd Gen.
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If it's not in the list, it will be added, thats possible.
@mayank.bhola1:
No need to scared and say it will never come. If you didn't have a proof, don't open such scaring threads "no official cyanogen 14.1" that's really annoying to others, because some people trust it and won't buy the device maybe(just an opinion)
I avoid anything cm based. Always worse on battery life.
trsix said:
I avoid anything cm based. Always worse on battery life.
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That's not true that all cm based has "always" worse battery life. On my galaxy's I got more battery compared to Samsung roms(official or mod) and also on my other devices cm gives me more battery life then stock, even to aosp! Maybe you encountered bad experiences, but it totally depends on the device tree, drivers, modem, source, etc etc... And the knowledge of the dev :angel:
My experience with CM was that a lot of the features added where useless to me and they just added battery drain and new bugs. And when a bug was fixed in a nightly, there was a good chance that another two bugs would pop up.
Not cool if you really need to use your phone as a phone. Maybe OK if you don't have a job or you stay at home all the time.
SoNic67 said:
My experience with CM was that a lot of the features added where useless to me and they just added battery drain and new bugs. And when a bug was fixed in a nightly, there was a good chance that another two bugs would pop up.
Not cool if you really need to use your phone as a phone. Maybe OK if you don't have a job or you stay at home all the time.
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So you concluding that we must stick to stock ROMs ??
Depends of what you do for living... and if need a reliable phone line for that.
SoNic67 said:
Depends of what you do for living... and if need a reliable phone line for that.
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I knew a device which stock cos rom is the hell on earth(random reboots, bugs, freezes) compared to cm and nearly all people saying wow after flashing cm instead of staying on stock. CM is widely available for devices and always a chance to get more out of your device when the manufacturer gives up the development after launching the device or won't fix bugs in acceptable time.
Not the case here. Moto firmware is stable and not bloated.
CM is best after OEM leaves device support. I had Asus Zenfone 5 earlier but no official CM so developers made unofficial one but Asus had serious issues with bootloader unlock as no developer was able to resolve screen freeze issues. So running custom ROMs on that device was hell bad.
If you think making cm and make it official is easy then do it urself, we really want to see. Things are not same as 1st,2nd &3rd. The chipset are way different than the previous gen. So stop posting useless things. Dont open thread for you own satisfaction.
Just my $0.02 : The premise behind getting a custom ROM is that it's for those who have an above average idea about OS, customizations, working on a system level and such.
The whole argument about stability, and what one does for their living is a bit too far fetched in context of using a device that is dependable. Stock ROMs are made by OEMs keeping a novice end-user in view, who may or may not have sufficient time, knowledge or inclination of going beyond what the device came shipped with.
Custom ROMs and development is undertaken almost completely as a voluntary exercise by the devs, mostly on cost of their own resources and go far as to offer their work off forum threads which they'd personally support. Those flashing and modding devices are ones testing the work undertaken by devs, and even after a ROM gets official status, work on development continues with feedback from users and updating security, porting features from other devices, expanding customization et al.
Battery use, smoothness of UI, connectivity, stability, obviously are essential to one's experience of using their phone, but are highly dependent on how well one's put to use the abilities of their custom ROM, apart from what applications or settings one's gotten on, and that would come about only with experimenting, learning and keeping oneself updated with their device's software.
Stock ROMs, barring the few odd ones which run stock Android are almost always crammed with bloatware, uncustomizable UI/features and locked in to a mesh of regulatory compliances, OEM/vendor/third party interests and above all marketing the device as a product - which means you're good to go for just about as long as the OEM cares, and that isn't usually long enough given they'd obviously be focused on selling newer products.
So, it's just that mileage may vary but if you're willing to stick around to learn and experiment, customizing is the only way to truly own your phone.
Sent from my Moto G4 Plus using XDA Labs
Frances91 said:
...
Stock ROMs, barring the few odd ones which run stock Android are almost always crammed with bloatware, uncustomizable UI/features and locked in to a mesh of regulatory compliances, OEM/vendor/third party interests and above all marketing the device as a product - which means you're good to go for just about as long as the OEM cares, and that isn't usually long enough given they'd obviously be focused on selling newer products.
So, it's just that mileage may vary but if you're willing to stick around to learn and experiment, customizing is the only way to truly own your phone.
Sent from my Moto G4 Plus using XDA Labs
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I think the G4 is close to AOSP. Using Xposed you can get many fancy features found in custom roms. GravityBox gives you much of what CM offers.
Security features make it much more difficult to customize a phone. Pay by phone, i.e. "Wallet" will become important.
Custom roms are used more now for keeping old phones current. Not that much happening with new phones. Look at CyanogenMod https://download.cyanogenmod.org/ to view this.
king200 said:
I think the G4 is close to AOSP. Using Xposed you can get many fancy features found in custom roms. GravityBox gives you much of what CM offers.
Security features make it much more difficult to customize a phone. Pay by phone, i.e. "Wallet" will become important.
Custom roms are used more now for keeping old phones current. Not that much happening with new phones. Look at CyanogenMod https://download.cyanogenmod.org/ to view this.
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If you're considering using Xposed for the 'fancy features' and use wallet, and yet vouch for stock Roms I'm not sure what you're on to. You'd need for more mods running on a stock ROM which would anyways take months or even years to get updated to run latest Android versions. Some times you'd just stick around with frequent updates which are still two SDK versions behind the current official release, basically cycling through bloat, partner apps and constant rooting, modding to just keep your phone worth it's use.
As for new phones, it takes a fair amount of time, effort and understanding to access available sources and build a device tree from which custom ROMs are built.
Besides, not many users, unless they've specifically bought the new device to work on development, adopt customization till about several months after their purchase. As for CyanogenMod site they list the official ROMs, which are painstakingly built after months of testing. What you see on there are mostly devices which are either usually a year old or are stock Android - both being fitting scenarios for system level modifications to drive both performance and customization. You'd be hard pressed to find Android OEMs updating devices or even offering security patches for long.
Also, do remember MIUI, Oxygen and several other OEM ROMs that run across some of the most successful phones evolved from the custom ROMs community development.
And yeah, there's the custom kernels as well which almost always need a custom ROM.
Unless you've hit upon a groundbreaking counter claim to all the benefit of custom ROMs you would be among a tiny minority of informed users who ascribe to that idea. I would really like to benefit from what you can share about it, I am sure I can hit up the devs in my subscribed threads and help them make better decision with their time and efforts.
Sent from my Moto G4 Plus using XDA Labs
Hi,
I was wondering if Android 10 based ROMs from maybe our favourite devs, say the unofficial Lineage OS 17, RR8 etc would be available and developed upon in the future.
I know the phone is getting old, and many people might have jumped ship towards newer ones, so are some of the devs still rocking the V20, or at least interested in developing for it.
It's hard to get a unified voice to predict, but in case someone knows some of the devs, it'd be nice to hear from them about this.
The biggest problem with those roms will be the lack of volte and wifi calling, those things are already a necessity to me.
I just bought my mint v20 tmobile version and frankly I am stunned by the lack of devlopment for this phone! For what many deem the last of the great flagship phone ever made ...it is stunning. I am comong from a leeco lemax 2 which has an extremely active development forum, I was so hoping to be able to install the latest greatest android and pixel OS ...but it is like a freaking ghost town. I know I would donate for a good OS on the latest android. Sad.
Alpha Omega might work on one, and it would be great. He might be our only hope.
Even without voLTE or WiFi calling, it'd be awesome to see some or even one Android Q ROM!
Personally I'd love a Paranoid Android ROM now they're back