Thursday, January 31, 2013

Oh, shi...

It's not going to be that much longer before we switch from wondering whether Google has the capabilities and infrastructure to maintain Android running on their very own devices, much less all the other ones, to realizing that they don't.

--Doug

Count Down

So, in what has turned out to be the daily routine here, we went over to the Google code forum devoted to Nexus 4 (and 7, and 10) wifi problems to see if the developers had deigned to offer up an estimate of time to fix for the wifi problems with the phone.

Nope.  784 complaints on the list now, but in spite of multiple folks having sent email to the Google Board of Directors and to the Google Press Office, and by all reports, one individual (ok, it was me) having sent Google CEO Larry Page a personal g+ message, all indicating dissatisfaction with how long it has taken to even come up with an estimate for a time to fix; nothing.  Still, nothing.

But wait! There's more!


Checking the Google play store, we see that the Nexus 4 is again being offered up for sale, with estimated shipping dates of one - two weeks.  What a coincidence!  Two weeks from about now coincides nicely with when LG has said that they will start producing N4's again.  Actually, what LG said is that they will increase production starting February, but they appear to have stopped production totally in order to "gear up" for higher production.

If I had to guess when Google will finally get a bug fix release out, it would be before February 15.  Otherwise there will suddenly be a lot more pretty Gorilla Glass wifi bricks (GGWB's) out in the wild.

Not that Google has shown any concern or urgency about the estimated half million Nexus 4 GGWB's already out there.

--Doug
doug@parrot-farm.net

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Waiting

Yesterday we sent politely-worded requests to both the Google Press Offices, press@google.com, and to the Board of Directors, directors@google.com requesting feedback or a status update on when we could expect fixes for the broken Nexus 4 (and 7 and 10) Google devices,

So today, we went over to one of the more verbal of the Google code forums devoted to Nexus wifi issues -769 complaints as of yesterday - to see if my politely-worded request for a status update deposited there yesterday had received any response.

Discovered that the site was down.

Going to the site,  http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=40065
led us to this:
It's been down for a couple of hours now.  But you know what? The above message is every bit as useful as the ones we have been getting from the Google developers whenever we asked them about when we could expect to have working Nexus 4 phones.

Points for consistency.

--Doug

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Letter Sent to the Google Press Offices

Dear Google press folks,

Not sure if you're aware of it, or are even interested, but just in case: we wanted you to know that Google is close to being voted in as winner of The Worst Customer Support EVER Prize. Step aside, Microsoft.

This vote of confidence comes from an apparently very dissatisfied Nexus 4 customer voicing said opinion on one of your own Google code forums.

I have, myself, been watching with some fascination the unveiling of the Three Stooges Approach to customer support that your Google Devices Support operation, and your Google Nexus Developer Team have clearly adopted. In fact, you can read about some of the more slapstick support episodes in this article which was published recently in Linux Today.

One of my favorite Three Stooges-style customer support demonstrations is described here, and a more complete outline of Google's attempt to achieve complete customer support dysfunction was written up, point by point here.

Also, it did not escape our attention that Google's Public Relations office has pulled out all the stops regarding damage control over the Nexus 4 shortcomings. 

So, what can we say, but good work! Nice job! Way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory! Way to make Microsoft (!?) look positively nimble!

You guys are the new dysfunction KINGS!

Best,

--Doug

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Cover Up?

Some of the more experienced software folks over on this Google code forum are beginning to openly question if Google is attempting to cover up a production problem with the new Nexus 4 phone.

As this poster speculates,

#669 jallen...@gmail.com
The conspiracy theorist in me wonders if it's not just a production problem that's caused the delay, but if Google is stalling to get this fixed before releasing more devices out into the wild? I question everything at point. 

It can't be that difficult to fix. Figure out what changed between 4.1.2 and 4.2/4.2.1 with sleep option code, and get Qualcomm to fix the WiFi driver in the N4.  Either way stop trying to pin it on routers, diff the codebases, and fix it. 

I'm going to ping all the tech blogs about this. Google deserves all the bad press it should get about this and the way they've handled this.  My data usage is through the roof because I can't use WiFi. Not to mention my N7 is barely usable since it's Wi-Fi-only. 

We didn't pay hundreds of dollars for bricks, but that's basically what we have at this point. 

I would tend to agree; the time it has taken for Google to address this problem does not make sense.  Tracking the changes between 4.1.2 and the subsequent problematic releases should have led a competent sw team to the causes of the wifi problems within days, not months.  I can't imagine how even big, dysfunctional Google could have been sufficiently incompetent and indifferent to have allowed this to drag on for months. After all, the Nexus 4 is their highly-touted premier new game-changing phone product.

Perhaps this news in which LG states that they will be gearing up production of the Nexus 4 is another piece of the puzzle.  How about we spin a story here:
  1. As soon as trouble reports started trickling in about wifi problems with the new Nexus 4, Google and LG quickly discovered that there was, in fact, a production problem that affected both the wifi and bluetooth functionality of the Nexus 4 phone.
  2. Google instructed their device support team to play ignorant about this.  Phone support personnel were told to allow customers who complained about these problems with the Nexus 4 to return them for refund or exchange, no questions asked.
  3. Google devs were instructed to ignore complaints about the Nexus 4 for as long as possible, and when that was no longer possible, to stall by suggesting that the wifi problems were due to router compatibility issues.
All of the above would hopefully provide enough time for LG to fix their production problems, and then announce an end to the shortage of Nexus 4 product by "increasing production".  Once the production problems had been fixed, of course.

Or, Google really is that indifferent regarding the success of their premier new product line.  Or, they are just unbelievably incompetent. You decide.

--Doug
doug@parrot-farm.net



Monday, January 21, 2013

Indifference

This isn't a story about the Google Nexus 4 phone, nor is it about the fact that there have been problems with its wifi and bluetooth operation that have persisted since the initial sales of the phone last November.

It is a story about Google's astonishing indifference to the failings of the phone, and to its estimated customer base of ~400,000 users.

As is summarized in this blog post, Google is perfectly willing to RMA Nexus 4 merchandise for anybody who calls to complain about the phone's problems. All the while being fully aware that there is an open bug report about as-yet unresolved wifi issues with the phone. And half a dozen other open bug reports like this one on bluetooth problems with the phone.

It is pointed out in this blog post that Google owns both the hardware and the software for the phone. Third-party telco carriers are not a factor. The phone is an all-new Google design, which they contracted out to LG to manufacture for them. The OS is Android 4.2.1 - a Google product.

Why, then, has Google shown so little interest in resolving the phone's problems and getting a patch pushed out to the users? Is it, as that last blog post suggests, that they either can't, or don't want to fix the problem, and are preparing to abandon the Nexus 4 product line? Or is the company just demonstrating some pretty epic indifference to their customers? After all, the revenues generated by selling 400,000 phones can only represent a tiny fraction of their gross revenue stream.

Time will tell. If a fix for all the phone's problems eventually does get pushed out, then the worst we could complain about is Google's massively tone-deaf, unresponsive device support infrastructure. On the other hand, if the rumors that the phone's manufacturer, LG, has indeed shut down its Nexus 4 production line in preparation to produce "next-generation" phones, what will Google do?

I will be interesting to see what happens.

--Doug
doug@parrot-farm.net

Semi-Final Note on the Nexus 4

I saw the following plea in the Google code forum that is tracking the Nexus 4 wifi bugs.


#637 jamma...@gmail.com
please don't make me return my nexus 10 and get another iPad Google...............

I wanted to leave a couple of closing thoughts on this, so I posted a response.

Today (16 minutes ago) Delete comment
#638 d...@parrot-farm.net
@637: It does not take a rocket scientist to notice that Google has demonstrated a huge indifference towards their Android device customer base.  It has to be that, I mean, as compared to being hugely incompetent.  After all: Google owns Android.  And they own the Nexus device line.  Think about it: they own the OS, and they own the hardware, which they contracted out to hardware vendors to build for them.  What else would explain their inability to sell and support a product that works, if it's not indifference?

I guess it could be incompetence, though.  Or maybe arrogance.  Which would lead to indifference.  Which would appear as incompetence.

In other words, I'm guessing that Google could not care less even if they tried whether or not you send back your Nexus 10 and purchased another iPad instead.

Bottom line, I guess, is that from a consumer perspective it doesn't matter whether Google's dysfunction while bringing the Nexus line of product to market was caused by indifference, arrogance, inexperience, or incompetence - the net result is the same: a defective product and a non-functional product support system. And a customer base who is left feeling that Google has given them the finger.

It will be interesting to see whether the Nexus 4 turns out to be a failed experiment. Google has had two months to fix the wifi and bluetooth problems with it, and rumor has it that LG has already stopped production of the Nexus 4. Will Google cast the estimated 400,000 Nexus 4 owners adrift, or will they eventually be able push out an update that fixes it?

We'll see.

--Doug
doug@parrot-farm.net

Sunday, January 20, 2013

Screw It

As the post title says.

Google has sent me three Nexus 4 phones, and all three have had crippling wifi and bluetooth issues.

If you're interested, you can check out the previous post for the time frame that this fiasco evolved over, and if you're really a glutton for punishment, you can read all thirteen (13!) previous posts that detailed the sad experience the Nexus 4 has become.

The tipping point came today when I made one last call to Google's device support number, 1-855-836-3987, in a final attempt to get someone to tell me when the problems with the Nexus 4 wifi and bluetooth would be fixed.

No one knew, of course, so I'm sending this last one back and getting my account credited for the $349 price of the 16GB Nexus 4.

It is telling, on several levels, that the wifi and bluetooth problems with Android 4.2.1 and the N4 have been known for quite some time.  On November 20th, this Google code forum was started to track the wifi problem. At the time of this writing there are 635 complaints in that forum, and the Google developers have yet to announce that they have identified what the problem is and are working on a fix.

Or, perhaps they've identified the problem and have determined that it can't be fixed.  This would be consistent with rumors that the phone's manufacturer, LG, has halted production of the Nexus 4 in order to gear up to produce its "next-generation smartphones", whatever those happen to be.

In any event, I'm happy to send my third Nexus 4 back. It's a lemon, just like the previous two.

I'll keep an eye on things to see if Google eventually gets it right, at which time I'd consider taking another look at the Nexus 4, because if the phone had worked, it would have been pretty cool. But it didn't. So it's not.

And Google; well, their customer support operation could use a little fine tuning as well.  The morbidly curious are welcome to peruse the previous thirteen posts for hints at where some room for improvement exists there.

--Doug
doug@parrot-farm.net


Friday, January 18, 2013

Time Frame of the Nexus 4 wifi Bug Issues

The first bug report on the Nexus 4 "narcolepsy" data dropout wifi behavior was posted on this Google Code forum on November 20, 2012.  Between November 20 and January 6, 2013, 416 additional comments were posted to this forum, either verifying the behavior, or reporting additional wifi problems with the Nexus 4.

On January 6, 47 days after the initial bug report was posted, Google finally assigned a developer to the bug.  Since then we have been told the following by the Google Device support Team, who are supposedly working with the developers on this issue:

  • "No, we've never heard of anyone complaining about this, you're the first.  Sounds like a hardware problem, send your phone back and we'll send you a new one."  Did this twice.
  • "No, it's not a hardware problem. Turning the wifi off during deep sleep is a feature. But if you don't like this feature, let us know.  Google listens to its customers' feedback."
  • "If you like, you can send your phone back, and we will send you a third replacement."

FINALLY, on January 14, the Google developer posted the following, here.

Regarding nexus 4: Qualcomm driver on nexus 4 has a known issue of not supporting ARP offload while filtering out broadcast packets. This causes issue with connectivity when device is in suspend. Fix planned for next update.

At about this time the Google developer began to acknowledge that there were additional wifi problems with Nexus 4, 7, and 10 devices that were not related to the buggy Qualcomm driver used by the Nexus 4.  The implication being that there were additional wifi bugs in Android 4.2.1. 

Since January 14 there have been 87 additional bug reports and comments added to the bug report thread.  Six of these were from the Google developer requesting info regarding router model number and firmware rev. of those people with Nexus 4, 7, and 10 devices that were experiencing problems connecting to the router.

To date, we are told by the Google developer that there is no ETA for fix(s).

In the mean time, another, potentially-related bug with the Nexus 4 has been reported: data dropouts that occur over mobile carrier HSPA+ data network connections.  No acknowledgement of this yet from Google.

Stay tuned.

--Doug
doug@parrot-farm.net




Thursday, January 17, 2013

Interesting Priorities

Google has an interesting set of priorities.  They currently have approximately 400,000 Nexus 4 phones out there with broken wifi drivers running  such a badly flawed 4.2.1 version of Android that the phones essentially turn into pretty Gorilla Glass bricks when the screen is blanked.

So where does Google focus their PR efforts?  Well, they put their PR efforts into assuring us that one of their Street View photography vehicles didn't kill a donkey in Botswana.

While we're extremely happy that at worst, the Google vehicle only interrupted the animal’s dust bath, we're not as thrilled with Google's customer support.  Or lack of it, given that it took two months before Google would even acknowledge the problems with the Nexus 4.  And, later,  as a by the way, giving grudging acknowledgement of complaints that the Nexus 7 and Nexus 10's also are having a whole lot of trouble connecting to wifi.

You would think that the Google behemoth would be busting a gut trying to assure its customer base that its new flagship phone would be fixed real soon now.

But they're not.  I wonder why?

--Doug
doug@parrot-farm.net


Wednesday, January 16, 2013

400,000 Lemons

According to numerous reports, Google has sold approximately 400,000 Nexus 4 phones to date.

And according to this Google bug report forum post from a Google device software developer, all 400,000 must have been sold with a buggy Qualcomm wifi driver that basically bricks the phone whenever the screen is blanked when connected via wifi.

Now we discover, according to this article, that the phone's manufacturer has already stopped producing the Nexus 4 to gear up to manufacture successor Nexus phone products.  LG, of course, denies that they are stopping production of the Nexus 4.

Seriously?

Google sold 400,000 lemons, which still aren't working properly due to a buggy wifi driver, as well as staffing a lackluster/inconsistent/autistic/tone-deaf device support system within Google, and Google is planning to just move on? The Google bug report forum mentioned above now has 600 complaints, mostly about faulty wifi behavior on the Nexus 4.  And these complaints date back to November 20, 2012.

Seriously?

This is the kind of behavior that could give a company a bad name.

--Doug
doug@parrot-farm.net

The Beat Goes On

This politely-worded query was just now deposited on the Google Code Forum thread devoted to buggy wifi behavior with the Nexus 4 phone:


Don't want to seem unduly critical, Google Devs, but seriously: what is the deal with the Nexus 4?  It really did take about 2 months to get your attention regarding the crippling wifi disconnect problems with the phone.  And all the while the Google Device Support folks were still calling it a hardware problem and RMA'ing phones any time a person would call to complain about it.

Then, the Device Support folks called the deep sleep wifi disconnect behavior a "feature".

Then one of the devs said that the behavior was due to a buggy Qualcomm wifi driver.

Yet the devs are still asking everybody who is experiencing wifi problems with the N4 and the N7 to provide their router model and firmware rev. info.

Is it really asking too much to get a straight answer?  Two straight answers, actually:

1) WTF is the problem with the Nexus 4, and
2) How long is it going to take before you fix it?

If there are separate wifi problems that affect the N4 and the N7, perhaps you could share that with us as well.

Seriously.  That's all we want to know.

Thanks in advance.

The Google Narcoleptic 4 Phone

Every Friday morning, a group of complexity scientists meets at the cafeteria at St. John's College in Santa Fe, NM to discuss, well, complex things. The name of the group is FRIAM, for Friday morning...

One of my FRIAM friends has been following the recent Google Nexus 4 phone saga.  That product has recently become known as the Google Narcoleptic 4,  btw.  He sent me a cartoon which pretty much captures the current state of affairs detailed by earlier posts on this blog.

Thanks, Steve!


Monday, January 14, 2013

It Was a Known Issue



UPDATE: 9:15 am 1/14/2013.  The Google device developer assigned to the Nexus 4 wifi issue just posted in the code.google.com thread dedicated to this problem:

"Regarding nexus 4: Qualcomm driver on nexus 4 has a known issue of not supporting ARP offload while filtering out broadcast packets. This causes issue with connectivity when device is in suspend. Fix planned for next update."


So we now learn that for all this time, this was a known problem with the wifi driver used in the Nexus 4.  Yet Google Device support blithely continued to RMA Nexus 4 phones for people who called in complaining about the wifi going to sleep when the screen was blanked.

Oh, and the Google Device Support Team never mentioned that this behavior was due to a known issue. I wonder if being incompetent violates Google's official corporate policy?

--Doug
doug@parrot-farm.net

Sunday, January 13, 2013

Has Google Become Institution-Bound?


The debut of Google's new Nexus 4 phone has been a less than smooth experience for the internet giant, from minute one of day one. To the no-doubt embarrassment of the management of a company that is the embodiment of "big computing", their public-facing ecommerce systems were totally incapable of meeting the initial demand  for the new Nexus 4. Play.google.com servers crashed under load in the first few minutes after the phone went up for sale on November 12, 2012, and stayed down for most of the day.

The phone apparently sold out at some point during that day, but potential buyers couldn't tell because Google's servers kept crashing under the load of people continuing to try to buy it.

As if that was not embarrassing enough, when Google was finally able to get another supply of stock from the phone's manufacturer, LG on December 17, the same thing happened again! One would have thought that the poster child for scalable computing would have been able to ramp up their ecommerce systems to meet a now known demand in that one-month period since the initial fiasco.

But they weren't.  Why is that?  We have our suspicions, but let's tell a little bit more of the Nexus 4 story first. It will probably become clear.

Almost immediately after folks started receiving their new Nexus 4 phones, trouble reports began cropping up in places like this, and this. Oh, and this, as well. And this. And this. And this. And this. And finally, this.

If you have caught the gist of where we are going with the article, it will come as no great surprise to hear that it took forever to get Google's attention regarding broken wifi network behavior with the Nexus 4. As the problem reports contained in the links above demonstrate, the Google Device Support team appears to be a bit autistic.  Or, communication between the Google Device Support team and the Google Nexus 4 developers simply does not exist. If you read all of the bug reports listed in the links above, you now know that it took nearly two months before the Nexus 4 developers even became aware that there was a problem with the wifi drivers for the Nexus 4 that was severe enough to warrant assigning the problem to a developer.

So there we are.  Google oversaw the development of a potentially game-changing Android phone, but couldn't stand up an ecommerce system that would allow people to buy it.  Then they stood up a Google Device Support team that is seemingly completely tone-deaf. With apologies to Douglas Adams, we have met the Vogons, and they are the Google.

--Doug
doug@parrot-farm.net

____________________________

UPDATE: 9:15 am 1/14/2013.  The Google device developer assigned to the Nexus 4 wifi issue just posted in the code.google.com thread dedicated to this problem indicating that there is a "known problem" with the Qualcomm wifi driver used by the Nexus 4 that is causing most, if not all of the problems that folks are complaining about. See the next blog post for more info.

Friday, January 11, 2013

Pester Power



Google is aware that people think there is a problem with at least some of the Nexus 4s. Whether or not they believe there is a problem, or instead think the "deep sleep" WiFi behavior is a "feature" as they have previously claimed is another issue.

Yesterday I submitted a bug report from my Nexus 4 using the process described here: http://support.google.com/nexus/bin/request.py?contact_type=bugreport&src=40065

In the comments section of the bug report I included this, references to several of my blog posts about the N4 WiFi problems: (Warning: self-referencing blog post links follow).


A few minutes later I saw via Statcounter that Google was reading those posts, from a Mac, no less. It would have been more totally cool if the Google guy was using a Linux box, or an Android device, at least.

Page Views: 3
Entry Page Time:
10 Jan 2013 16:02:44
Visit Length:1 second
Browser: Chrome 23.0
OS: MacOSX
Resolution: 1440x900
Total Visits: 1
Location: Mountain View, California, United States
IP Address: Google (216.239.45.78) [Label IP Address]
Referring URL: (No referring link)
Entry Page: things-linux.blogspot.com/2013/01/its-feature.html
Exit Page: things-linux.blogspot.com/2012/12/issues-with-google-nexus-4-phone.html


It's not as good as having Google acknowledge that there is a problem with the Nexus 4, but at least we know for sure that at least one Google developer is aware that people are saying there is problem.

So today, this comment appeared on the code.google.com thread that is being used to report on the Nexus WiFi problems: http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=40065#c466

Yay! Google has finally "officially" outed themselves as being aware that there is, in fact, a problem. Let's hear it for Pester Power!

--Doug
doug@parrot-farm.net




Thursday, January 10, 2013

Have A Nice Day

The folks over at this Google Code forum are getting a bit irate about Google's non-responsiveness regarding bugs in the Nexus 4's WiFi system.

So, last night I collected up a few of the more succinct, descriptive comments and passed them on to the Google Device Support team via the email address that Google used to send me the authorizations when I RMA'd my first two Nexus 4 phones because of the buggy WiFi behavior.  See previous posts for details on that.

About three hours later, I got this response from Google:

"Hi again Doug,

Thanks for staying in touch with Google.

I really appreciate the additional info and suggestions. I'll be sure to get all of this feedback sent up to our development team. I hope to see that all these little kinks get ironed out, and we get these devices working perfectly. 

Thanks for your interest in the Nexus 4.

If there's anything else I can help you out with, let me know. Have a great day!"

I replied that it would really be nice to get some kind of estimate for how long it was going to be before we saw a fix to this problem.

No response to that one.

--Doug
doug@parrot-farm.net

Monday, January 7, 2013

The Good

Previous posts here have discussed some of the deficiencies of the Google Nexus 4 phone: broken WiFi, broken bluetooth, confused guidance from the Google Nexus Device support team.

For something different, this post describes a few of the good features of the phone. The first is HSPA+ bandwidth.  I was down in Santa Fe, NM yesterday where T-Mobile has good 4G coverage, and discovered that I could regularly get 11+ Mbps download speeds, and 1 Mbps uploads. Not too shabby, and every bit as good as I could sometimes get on the old phone with Verizon's 4G LTE.

The reason that I ditched my old HTC/Verizon phone was that I could get a $39/month 2GB high-speed data plan from T-Mobile and use GrooveIP and my Google Voice phone number to do all my calls using voip on the Nexus 4.  I was paying $120/month for my Verizon plan.  With the $81/month savings from dumping Verizon, the $349 price for the Nexus 4 will be paid back in about 5 months, with $81 per month extra beer money in my pocket every month afterwards!

In case you're wondering, the call quality with GrooveIP are generally excellent, depending on network quality of service, of course.

Other good things about the Nexus 4 have been covered in numerous reviews elsewhere (Gizmodo, ZDNet), so I won't repeat them here, except to say that aside from the bugs mentioned earlier, Android 4.2.1 on the phone is fast, clean, and nice to use.  But, since lots of folks, including those at Google  are now aware of the WiFi and bluetooth bugs in 4.2.1, they'll probably get fixed soon, making the Nexus 4 a completely satisfying experience.

--Doug
doug@parrot-farm.net

Friday, January 4, 2013

It's a Feature

No, it's a bug!  

I called Google device support yesterday on the WiFi sleeping issue, and told them that my third Nexus 4 phone had the same defective WiFi behavior as the previous two, as described in previous posts here. Then I asked to escalate the issue so that I could talk to a level 2 support rep.

The rep was quite helpful and put me on hold to talk to some of the Nexus 4 software developers. She came back and said that the developers told her that this "deep sleep" turning WiFi off behavior was actually a feature. I told her that it really acted a whole lot more like a bug, in that it breaks the Advanced WiFi Setting for keeping WiFi on "Always", and asked her to feed that back to the developers.  Not to mention the fact that turning WiFi off basically bricks the phone until you manually wake it up again...

So, the good news, I guess, is that it is not a hardware problem.  You'd think that after 2 RMAs, though, Google would have known this and simply shared that information right up front. Now that we know, however, those of you experiencing the same problems should call Google support and provide feedback to them. The number is 1-855-836-3987.

--Doug
doug@parrot-farm.net

Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Do Not Write On Board

Today UPS delivered my 3rd Google Nexus 4 phone. An hour later it was clear that it has the same WiFi defect, which you can read about in some depth here in one of the Google code forums:


If you're not interested in wading through all 387+ trouble reports, the summary of this thread is nice and succinct:

______________________
Please describe the problem in detail. Be sure to include:

- Steps to reproduce the problem.

     Wifi will drop connection after a period of time (looks to be while in deep sleep. Shows normal signal strength but google sync has been lost (grey status bar icons) and no connection

- What happened.

     Connection drops completely

- What you think the correct behavior should be.


Shouldn't drop connection at all.
________________

So, what's the big deal?  Well, only that the phone basically stops working when connected to WiFi after you blank the screen.

What I find really interesting is that we all know that Google is aware of this problem, but has yet to utter even a peep about this.  Let's speculate on why they might have gone silent on this one.  Here are are few possibilities:
  1. It's a hardware problem.  It can't be fixed with a firmware update.  If word gets out, sales will crater.  Remember the Apple antenna "grip of death" fiasco?
  2. It's a driver problem.  It can be fixed with a firmware update.  But, if word gets out, sales will crater until the upgrade is available. And, the problem only exists when the phone is connected via WiFi.  Most people won't notice, right?
  3. It's a little bit of each. It's a hardware problem that a firmware upgrade can sort of patch, but there will always be degraded performance when the phone is using WiFi.  Don't want people to know that...
Anyhow, back to my particular issue. At the time of this writing there are 377 complaints on the Google Code thread mentioned above.  I have personally sent Google support a link to this thread.  We know that Google knows about this problem.  What to do?  I'm on my third phone.  I use it mostly when it is WiFi-connected.  Or I would, if it worked.

So here's what I'm going to do.  In the morning I'll call the Google device support number, 1-855-836-3987, and I'll initiate another RMA ticket.  But, before agreeing to wait for them to send me another defective phone I'll try to escalate this issue through their support infrastructure until I get someone on the line who is willing to tell me:

1. What is the problem with the phone, and
2. When will it be fixed?

That's not asking too much, is it?

--Doug
doug@parrot-farm.net