If you really know me, then you know I have been waiting almost a year for Motorola/Verizon to release the V9m, aka the RAZR2. Well I received it this morning. There I stood at the front door of our office as the FedEx driver grabbed the package and strolled my way. I snatched it from his hand, scribbled my name on his package tracking device and ran to my office. There I sat in my office, a huge smile on my face as I ripped the box open. I was running around like a duck in a hail storm, not knowing which way to turn, or what to do next. I finally decided to let it charge up before diving in to discover all of the wonderful features Motorola promised to deliver.
While charging the phone, I gathered all the required information to activate and program it so it would be fully functional when I powered it up for the first time. Finally it was time, I called the activation number, followed the prompts, and it was active. Next I called to activate it and update it with the latest signal information. It was good to go!
Now comes the fun part, I thought to myself. Was I ever wrong. You see, over the years, Verizon has had this thing about disabling all the really cool stuff. For instance, it's easy to make a ringtone, but Verizon wont let you load it on your phone, it used to be easy to sync your calendar, but now they have disabled that feature. Why you ask? MONEY! I noticed that they recently added a new subscription based app for their phones ( only $19.95 per MONTH ), that will sync your email to your phone, as well as your address book and yes, your calendar. They also sell ringtones, wallpaper, and of course you can download music to your phone. You can load music to your phone out of your collection, if you buy their software and cable. Luckily I am not falling for their tricks. You see they hire college graduates with degrees in programming to design their software, big mistake, really big mistake. If you don't believe me ask Bill Gates. Any 13 year old Russian kid with a pc can figure out how to hack past all their bullshit. Just this afternoon I was able to get in the "backdoor" of the phone and change a couple of settings. Give me another week and I'll have the firmware flashed with the original motorola software and be happy. :)
The point I want to make here is that THEY are doing this to us, and we are letting them. So what do we do? We need to bitch about it, let them know we will not stand for half-assed products that do not do what they are advertised to do. We will not let them trick us into spending more money because the product we buy does not do everything it is capable of doing.
If you ever need your cell phone tricked out, hollar at me, I'll see what I can do.
Thanks for listening to me bitch.
You're friend 'til the end,
J.R.
