In December, Motorola and Verizon prematurely rolled out the Droid RAZR and Droid RAZR MAXX Jelly Bean updates. After the update was stopped, owners were left wondering when the real update roll outs might arrive. Motorola originally said Q1 of this year and now, thanks to Motorola, that roll out window has been officially confirmed.
Read: State of Android 4.1: Two Big Jelly Bean Updates Remain.
On December 24th, it appeared that Christmas had arrived early for Droid RAZR and Droid RAZR MAXX owners. Owners started to see the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean update arrive, an update that, like their HD counterparts, they had been promised sometime in the future. Motorola hadn’t said exactly when so the roll out was a bit surprising.
The Droid RAZR and RAZR MAXX will get Jelly Bean in Q1.
Soon after the roll out began, it was halted and it became clear that the companies had jumped the gun and that they had rolled out to owners way ahead of time. Motorola then cleared the air, claiming that the updates would be rolling out at some point in Q1. Q1 of 2013 encompasses the months of January, February and March.
Those dates though came from Motorola’s Facebook account and hadn’t yet appeared on the very official Motorola Support page for Android updates. That is, until recently, when the updates finally emerged on the support page with an official release window.
Motorola now has confirmed that Q1 roll out window for both of these updates which means that they should be rolling out by the end of March. Keep in mind, this is when Motorola “expects” them to roll out which means that there is a possibility of a delay. However, given the recent track record from Motorola, we expect that the updates will arrive when the company says they will arrive.
These new dates come with an overhauled look for Motorola’s support page as well, a page which is now separated by region and carrier in an orderly fashion.
Droid RAZR and Droid RAZR MAXX owners have been waiting for this update for quite some time. In fact, they have been waiting since the roll out of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich which brought a number of bugs to the table. ICS rolled out all the way back in the summer of last year, meaning, owners have had to deal with issues for many, many months.
Hopefully, the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean update patches those bugs up while also delivering the many features that will be coming with Android 4.1 itself, including a new smoother UI, improved stock applications, Google Now and more.
I’m still ditching Motorola and my Razr MAXX. I’m tired of dealing with Motorola’s sub-par support. I may even switch carriers from Verizon. One more week until my contract expires!!
I personally think it’s a verizon thing, they purposely withheld the update to push sales of the other RAZR’s that already have the update installed.
The sad fact is that many RAZR owners, including me, have experienced various problems with ICS and the braintrusts at Verizon decided it wise to roll out the bug fixes with the new OS. I have had to reset to factory defaults several times since the last OS update in July and I experience a steady degrade in performance over time
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Unfortunately the mobile phone industry is more enamored with obtaining new customers and selling the latest and greatest new phones than they are with maintaining a quality experience with their existing customers.
Hopefully Google will continure to design and build stand alone phones that are free of the carriers custom software meddling and bundling persistant crapware with their custom builds.
A fractured Android product is the result of the cellular companies hubris and ignorance when attempting to “brand” Android with their name (VERIZON) and force their agenda upon their customers.
And now a Liberian has decided that it is an illegal and a criminal act to unlock a carrier purchased cellphone.
Being a consumer in America sucks as the corporations and government make customers potential criminals via bought and paid for legislators and increasing corporate influence over our lawmakers through lobbying and bribery.
Ugh…
could not have said it better myself Mark – you just left out the words they won’t post
I didn’t even know people were still on ICS. I installed the Jellybean update the day it came out. Kinda disappointed now. I thought it was going to be a 4.2 update. Jelly Bean works flawless. Had it one my Xoom before my phone. You guys that have never used Jelly Bean are in for the best Android version yet.
Agreed.
I’m kind of bummed. I have a Nexus 7 and have been waiting and waiting. I checked today and downloaded and update only to be disappointed it is 4.1.2. WTF? 338 meg download and it isn’t even jelly bean. Come on VZW and Google!
Does Jellybean address the Bluetooth bugs in ICS ?
It has been Posted on motos list of devices to recieve the update in q1 of 2013 since Jan. what is the point of this “news update” if there is no new news in it. thanks for wasting time
Like many of you, I was very upset with Motorola / Verizon for the lack of support for ICS and the RAZR in general.
But I’m done with that, I’ve come to realize the greatest potential for our RAZRs are with custom ROMS. My phone experience has drastically changed since rooting, safe strapping, and installing Eclipse 1.51. Eclipse is fantastic and very stable…seriously. I can underclock the CPU, get 3+ days of battery life, countless customizations, etc. Needless to say, my Razr is now back on my good side.
Never again am I going to rely on Big Red or Motorola to fix my issues. I’ve realized I need to take a more proactive approach…that’s what Android is all about! Do it yourself, learn from others! Otherwise, I’d just get an iPhone and let Apple dictate my future.
I’m not saying I’m going to stick with Moto forever…Samsung does have a great product with the Galaxy, which is very friendly to Android updates, and so on. But the lowest common denominator is Verizon. They will impede your updates time and time again.
Embrace change, and don’t be afraid to take your phone’s experience into your own hands…there’s plenty of documentation and video demos on the web!