When Motorola’s colorful Moto X smartphone launched three months ago, I was firmly in the camp that wanted it to succeed. I hankered after it and stood up for it in TV interviews for the simple reason that it brought something fresh to the Android stable: it prioritized sensibility over sense, and it went after iPhone defectors instead of existing Android users.
But now, even as rumors suggest the Moto X will get relaunch and a new wave of publicity on major US carriers this week, the first “Google-rola” phone (built after Google acquired Motorola) is starting to look like a commercial misstep — or at best an idea ahead of its time.
To be fair, the Moto X did a lot right: it ignored the current trend towards huge displays, and offered a pre-shipping data transfer service specifically tailored for people whose contacts and calendars were locked up in Apple's AAPL -0.29% universe.
The handset also preempted the iPhone 5c’s plastic skins by offering an unheard-of degree of personalization before it left the factory, with hundreds of different color schemes to choose from via the “Moto Maker” online tool. There was even meant to be the option of having your Moto X partially carved out of wood — perhaps the only material that could stand out more than the gold-colored iPhone 5s.
So far, however, the Moto X has barely made a dent. Motorola’s specialized production line in Fort Worth got off to a terrible start: it couldn’t actually manufacture the wooden varieties, or even engrave personalized signatures like it had originally promised, and it couldn’t offer any customization whatsoever to buyers who weren’t with AT&T T -0.4%.
By September, as the buzz of publicity started to fade, Motorola was shipping just 100,000 units per week and bleeding even more cash than it had before Google acquired it. These days, the Moto X mostly makes headlines when its price drops — it’s now just $99 on a two-year contract, which is significantly cheaper than the iPhone 5c and further evidence of weak demand.
Then again, the Moto X story isn’t quite over. Later this week, on November 13th, we’re expecting Motorola to announce a cheaper off-shoot called the Moto G, although we don’t know what level of personalization it’ll offer (if any). There have also been plentiful rumors pointing to what could effectively be a second wind for the Moto X: the imminent expansion of the Moto Maker program to customers on all major US carriers, rather than just AT&T, and perhaps also the belated introduction of that missing timber option.
(Update: The newly expanded Moto Maker tool, offering customization for buyers with other US carriers, is now live.)
Now, it would be great if all these things came to pass, and if the Moto X and Moto Maker tool had another shot at winning people over. But if we put sense in front of sensibility again, the odds look heavily stacked against it, at least during this product cycle.
iPhone users will be harder to attract than ever, given the bold moves Apple has made since the Moto X first arrived. Android users, meanwhile, are now preoccupied with Google’s other phone, the quintessential (and subsidized) Nexus 5, which is cheap, well specced and, tellingly, only available in black or white.
At some point, we might just have to acknowledge that the Moto X was built for people who don’t exist in any great numbers — namely, Android hipsters and iPhone refugees — and that, despite Google’s best efforts, Android is still primarily seen as a practical alternative to other smartphones, not an aesthetic one.