The Fine Art of Corporate Fibbing

Word has it that the good folks at Google's Device Support hotline (1-855-836-3987) are still telling people who call in to complain about the wifi and bluetooth issues with their Nexus 4 phones one of two little white whoppers:

• (Imagine a voice on the telephone expressing the deepest of surprise) "Really? There are no reports of any wifi problems like that for the Nexus 4. Would you like to exchange your phone for a new one?" Or,
• (Imagine a voice on the telephone expressing the deepest of regret) "Oh, we are so sorry.  If that happened to me I'd be very concerned too! But tragically, that was intended functionality of the phone. We designed it so that you could not use wifi and bluetooth at the same time.

In the mean time, a developer over at XDA has provided a kernel that includes a new beta release of the Nexus 4 Qualcomm Prima wifi driver code that completely fixes the first bug, above, that Google has never heard of. I'm running the latest nightly CyanogenMod 10.1 release with this kernel, and it completely fixes this problem (that Google has never heard about).

Also, as I write this the CyanogenMod developers are integrating the new Qualcomm Prima driver code into their nightly builds, so that this bug (which Google has never heard about) will soon be fixed there as well.

Regarding the intended functionality bug that prevents the N4 from being able to run wifi and bluetooth at the same time [note that this only happens when you are connected to a wifi access point running at 2.4 GHz; if your wifi access is running at 5 GHz you do not experience this bug] there has not been even a whisper that anyone is looking at this.

What I find amazing is that Google has been given a free pass on these little corporate fibs. Nobody has called them on it.  I guess I'm still naive after all these years; I confess to have been completely fooled, snookered, suckered, taken in hook, line, and sinker regarding Google's corporate motto. 

“War is peace. 

Freedom is slavery. 

Ignorance is strength.” 

― George Orwell, 1984

"Lying is not Evil."

― Google, 2013

--Doug

Steve's Upcoming Counseling Session

We just set the following email to the Google Device Support Team:

_________________________

Hi, Google Device Support Team.

It's  been a while since we spoke, but I recently discovered that someone in your organization has been (I hope inadvertently) disseminating inaccurate information about this Nexus 4 bug, and I thought you'd want to know about it right away.  

Here's the deal: you see, we all know that the Nexus 4 was not designed on purpose to prevent wifi and bluetooth from being used at the same time.  We all know that it is a bug.  Well, all of us except for Steve, apparently. Here, read for yourselves:  

http://things-linux.blogspot.com/2013/03/translated.html

Now, we all have the utmost confidence that someone in your organization will immediately take Steve aside for a private little counselling session about the inappropriateness of, shall we say, bending the truth regarding this particular flaw in the Nexus 4 product.

Thanks for your prompt attention to this matter.

Best,

--Doug

________________________

(BTW, we don't think this is a picture of Steve, but it could be.)

Translated...

"It's a hardware bug, we can't fix it. If it were a software bug, we could, in theory, fix it, and we therefore would not be calling it a feature. Instead of calling it a bug.  Which is what it really is. But it would be inconvenient for us to be calling it that."

From one of the Google Nexus 4 product forums regarding the bad wifi/bluetooth interaction on the Neuxs 4:

The Google rep I talked to said this was intended functionality of the device and there is nothing to be done:

________________

Hi James,

Thank you for contacting Google Play Support. I understand you're having trouble with your wi fi and Bluetooth. If I were experiencing this issue I would be concerned as well. I assure you I have the information for this issue.

As we discussed, this is built in functionality of the device. You cannot use both wi fi and Bluetooth at the same time.

Thanks again for your patience and understanding.If you have any further questions or concerns, please feel free to reply to this email directly. Also, you can visit our help center at: 

http://support.google.com/googleplay/bin/request.py?contact_type=contract_policy&policy=hardware

Regards,

Steve

The Google Play Support Team

Of *course* this is "built in functionality. Of *course* Google  designed the phone so that you could not use wifi and bluetooth at the same time.

Oh, and by the way, telling little white lies is a little bit evil.

--Doug

Key Lime Pie and the Nexus 4

Since the last post, we've tried a CyanogenMod derivative ROM on the Nexus 4:  Paranoid Android 3+.

PA 3+ is a decent ROM, it feels solid and fast. However, it, like CM 10.1, is based on Android 4.2.2, and like CM 10.1 it has the same two irritating bugs as Google's own 4.2.2 Nexus 4 factory image which Google refuses to fix, for whatever reason.

Those two bugs of course are:

• Nexus 4 stops responding to ARP requests when screen is off with wifi on, and
• Bluetooth kills wifi on the Nexus 4.

We suspect that Google hasn't fixed these because they simply are unable to fix them, along with all of the other wifi and bluetooth issues in 4.2.2. The best we Nexus 4 owners can hope for is that when Google releases Android 5 Key Lime Pie in May, these well-known problems with the N4 will have been fixed.

But don't hold your breath.  It has been 179 days since the wifi and bluetooth problems with the Nexus 4 were first reported to Google: not exactly confidence-inspiring.

--Doug

CyanogenMod

We've gone down the path of CyanogenMod for the Nexus 4.  The Android development community has an apparent average age of about 14, and all the arrogance and haughty superior attitude of, say, your typical Los Alamos National Laboratory staff member in the mid-80's, but at least they know how to bang out code. It's kind of refreshing actually after the ponderous interactions with "Fuck you, we're Google".

The two primary outstanding N4 bugs that we've been tracking, and seeing zero progress from Google are

1. Nexus 4 stops responding to ARP requests when screen is off with wifi on, and
2. Bluetooth kills wifi on the Nexus 4.

We've reported both of these on the CyanogenMod Jira bug tracking site. Let's see if the CM folks can make better progress on them than Google.  Actually, if they do *anything* they'll be making better progress than Google, so the bar really isn't set all that high.

We've been favorably impressed with CM 10.1 M2 experimental release, as well as the recent nightly builds, so we're holding out some hope that a more agile, more energized bunch than the Google behemoth can finally get these issues fixed.

--Doug

96 Days, and Counting

Yep, 96 days since the Nexus 4 narcolepsy wifi bug was first reported here, and again later here.

However, after using up nearly a whole box of digital bandaids, like this one, which required rooting the phone, and this one, which was necessary to fully goad the still groggy N4 into reliably responding to push notifications when on wifi, well, the phone sort of works on wifi as you would have expected.

All this being necessary because Google just can't muster up the wherewithal to push out a fix for the buggy Qualcomm wifi driver.

However, if you dare to attempt to use wifi and bluetooth at the same time, say, to make a Skype call while using a bluetooth headset, boom: bluetooth kills the wifi radio.  Every time.  Usually locking up the phone in the process.

Other than that, the Nexus 4 is a great phone.  I guess.

--Doug

A Report Card on the Google Nexus 4 Phone

The new Nexus 4 phone from Google went on sale mid-November last year. It is made by LG and sold by Google, and is presently running, of course, the latest Android - 4.2.2 Jellybean.

We received the first of what eventually became a series of four Nexus 4's on December 13 last year. We figured some of you readers might be interested an actual user's experience with the phone, as compared to the often rather breathless "Oohs, and Aahs," that a few of the professional reviewers have been publishing about the N4. You might also want to take note of who pays for advertisement on some of those reviewer sites, btw. Just sayin'.

So, after having had three months to fully explore the phone, we thought we'd give Google a report card on the Nexus 4. We divided the report card into the following categories:

1. E-commerce purchasing experience,
2. customer support, and
3. product quality.

E-commerce Experience, Grade: D-

These days we have big-time professional E-commerce retailers like Amazon.com and Walmart.com around against which to compare Google for an online buying experience. As it turns out, Google fell flat on its face. When the phone first went up for sale on November 12, Google's servers crashed within minutes, and stayed down for most of the day. The phone apparently sold out within minutes, but potential buyers didn't know this until later that day because the servers could not handle the load of people trying to buy the phone.

Then, on December 17 when a fresh batch of phones became available for sale again, the same thing happened again! If I were Google, I'd be real embarrassed about that. Google: take a lesson from Amazon on how to host a scalable E-commerce infrastructure. We were torn between D- and F+, but eventually decided to give points for at least trying.

Customer Support, Grade: F

Here's were it gets a bit ugly. It seems like there were a few known issues with the Nexus 4 and with the Android 4.2.1 distribution that came with the phone. It also seems that the Google Nexus 4 developers were fully aware of these issues at the time the phone went up for sale. Or became so immediately after it went up for sale because that's when people started complaining.  

So, this is why we ended up calling Google's Device Customer Support number (1-855-836-3987) about an hour after receiving that first phone. The first thing we did after unpacking it and letting it connect to the home office wifi was to do an update from Android 4.2 to 4.2.1. Next, we paired it with a  Plantronics bluetooth headset, fired up Skype, and attempted to make a Skype VoIP call. 

Oops. Immediately, the phone's wifi died, and the wifi icon disappeared. And the phone locked up, requiring a hard reset. Wifi seemed to work fine. Unless you tried to use bluetooth. Bluetooth killed wifi, every time.

So we called Google's Device Support number, and were told, "There are no known problems with the Nexus 4, it sounds like a hardware problem; we'll be happy to replace if for you."

So we replaced it.

And the replacement phone had the same problem.

Then, we noticed that when we blanked the screen, the phone would disconnect itself from its wifi connection and would no longer respond to push notifications. This in spite of having the "Keep Wifi On" set to "always". When we'd turn the screen back on the wifi icon would be grey and then turn blue again after the phone reconnected to my wifi access point.

Another call to Google's Device Support Team. Was again told "No, there are no known issues with the Nexus 4." We let them send another replacement.

In the meantime, we searched the Google code forums where the Google developers hang out, and found several bug report threads devoted to the specific bluetooth wifi-killing issue and the wifi suspend issue, both dating back to November 20, 2012.

Clearly, Google had known about both of these problems for quite some time. 

By now we were curious to see if the Google Device Support team would tell us yet one more time "There are no known problems with the Nexus 4." So we called them. And they did.

We decided to have them send a third replacement. Because by now, one of the Google developers had identified the cause the wifi screenblank dropout behavior - a buggy Qualcomm wifi driver. Plus, a number of other wifi bugs had been identified in Android 4.2.1 which the Google Android developers promised to have fixed in 4.2.2. We figured we'd install the 4.2.2 update to see if they fixed the Nexus 4 problems.  

The problem is, 4.2.2 didn't come out in a very timely fashion. So on day 15, the last day for returning the phone to the vendor, we called to RMA our third Nexus 4.  

And then 4.2.2 came out. So we ordered a fourth Nexus 4. We are nothing if not tenacious.

And guess what? The same buggy Qualcomm wifi driver was in 4.2.2, and bluetooth still kills wifi. And other customers are now complaining the the Google Device Support Team is still telling them that there are no known problems with the Nexus 4.

So, we took our fourth Nexus 4, rooted it and installed the latest Cyanogenmod image, recovery-clockwork-touch-6.0.2.3-mako.img, and then installed this patch to the Qualcomm driver init file. The patch helps, but does not totally fix the wifi screen blank suspend problem. Bluetooth still kills wifi though.

I always wanted to root a phone anyway.  

The grade for customer support therefore is a big, fat F. Either for being dishonest, or for being completely incompetent. Whichever.

Product Quality, Grade: C

The HSPA+ 4G data service is nice, seems to work as it should with T-Mobile. We usually get download speeds of 3 - 7 Mbps and uploads of 0.7 - 3 Mbps in Santa Fe, NM were there is decent T-Mobile 4G coverage.

The camera is nice.

Battery life is on the short side, maybe 6 - 8 hours if the phone is used sparingly.

The wifi and bluetooth components are a shambles.

Summary

Google does not know how to do retail. The online buying experience was a disaster.  Google's customer support is either completely dishonest, or hopelessly incompetent. The Google code forums provide very little feedback to the thousands of bug reports about the Nexus 4. 

When bug reports are made via the Google code forums, progress can be measured by glacial standards. Relative eons pass with no feedback, and little progress. Bug reports about critical features of the Nexus 4 went for weeks before even being acknowledged, and once acknowledged, estimates of time to fix were never given.

Google effectively does not have a working customer support system.

The Nexus 4 looks great on paper. The reality is somewhat different, and at the rate Google is progressing (actually, we can't even tell if they are progressing) someone else will come out with a newer, better working product. 

Our advice: wait for that.

--Doug

Opportunity Knocks

Aha.

We see that potential competition is beginning to snap to the fact that an opportunity has opened up in the Android unlocked GSM cell phone market.

Blood is in the water.

The Google has exposed weakness.

Time to pounce?

Sony is considering the possibility.  As are a number of those quick turn-around knock-off cell phone manufacturers from (shh...) China, and oh, Korea.

Heck, they'd be idiots not to have noticed that Google has not even attempted to respond to the thousands of complaints which have surfaced about major flaws in their flagship offering, the Nexus 4.

Cripes!  A business opportunity.

Google sold a phone -- with under-powered Ecommerce servers, no less -- for which they *oopsie doodle*, appear unable to fix critical flaws. The OS and device drivers for that flagship device are broken! What!? Only part of the phone works!?  Which parts?  Well not the WiFi and bluetooth parts, that's for sure. Maybe the HSPA+ parts work, and apparently that's good enough for Google. But see, that leads to the next part just below.

Here it is, this is where opportunity knocks. First, note that the behemoth is paralyzed. Their support infrastructure is a shambles. Big parts of their phone are broken, and Google has demonstrated that they are incapable of addressing those issues. The Google Device Support toll-free hot line staff are still telling people who call in to complain about the phone that the Nexus 4 has no known problems, for fuck's sake.

Now, if we may suggest, is the time to pounce. Snatch that low-end GSM unlocked cell phone market away from The Google before they own it. Lock in to a working, maintainable version of Android, build the phone, and sell it!

Classic Darwinism in action.

All evidence suggests that at the rate Google is progressing towards fixing the now known critical flaws in the Nexus 4 - three months now with no appreciable progress -- an agile competitor could have a functionally equivalent competing working product on the market comfortably before Google has even publicly acknowledged that they have a problem. Which, of course, they have not done yet, because that would be bad for business.

Go for it.  Competition benefits all of us.  Except the ones who can't keep up.

One word of advice, though, to any of those out there considering this opportunity: don't make up little fibs to your customer base, in case problems arise.  They don't like that. It could get ugly if you did. Tell it like it is instead.  That will work.

--Doug

Stealthy

Interesting.

After a particularly, um, direct post on the blog here, we immediately see a bunch of stealthy proxy vpn-masked visits from Mountain View, Palo Alto, San Jose, and other communities geographically near the Immense Google Mother Ship.

For example:

Page Views: 2 Entry Page Time: 14 Feb 2013 17:42:18 Visit Length: 2 mins 47 secs Browser: Chrome 24.0 OS: Win8 Resolution: 1920x1080

*

Total Visits: 1 Location: San Jose, California, United States IP Address: Proxypacket Vpn (173.245.86.57) [Label IP Address] Referring URL: (No referring link) Entry Page: things-linux.blogspot.com/2013/02/very-little-surprise-here.html Exit Page: things-linux.blogspot.com/2013/02/very-little-surprise-here.html

Or this black pajama-clad visitor:

Page Views: 1 Entry Page Time: 14 Feb 2013 17:25:40 Browser: Facebook Bot OS: Unknown Resolution: Unknown

*

Total Visits: 1 Location: Palo Alto, California, United States IP Address: Facebook (69.171.248.2) [Label IP Address] Referring URL: (No referring link) Visit Page:

Cookies OFF! Sneak mode ON! BROWSE!

I've got a sneaking suspicion that even you Googleons are (slowly, massively, and with much inertia) beginning to notice the perception that

YOU SUCK

you have some room for improvement 

you could stand to improve a bit

No, actually, you do pretty much suck


at bringing a product to market.

You're welcome.

No, actually, you're not.  My Nexus 4 is still broken.

And along the way we've noticed that

1) Google's Ecommerce sales infrastructure sucks
2) Google's QA sucks
3) Google's support sucks
4) Google's product feedback channels are non-existent
5) Google is slow to respond to trouble reports 

Other than that, you're doing a great job, keep up the good work!

--Doug

(BTW: When we say you are "slow" to respond to trouble reports, we mean slow as in "Glaciers progress down the mountain slowly", and not: "That little old lady with the cane sure is slow crossing the street.")

Very Little Surprise Here

As I write this, my Nexus 4 is downloading the 4.2.2 OTA update. But I already know from reading this Google code bug forum as well as several other technical forums this morning, the promised delivery of a less buggy Qualcomm wifi driver did not occur with this release.

Imagine my surprise. Another turd sandwich. WiFi on the Nexus 4 still effectively turns itself off when the screen is blanked.

Ok, it's a few minutes later now, and 4.2.2 is installed. In the interest of completeness, I decided to test to see if the very first bug I encountered with the Nexus 4 last December still exists. This is the bug that if your phone is connected to WiFi and you place a call while using a bluetooth headset, bluetooth kills the phone's WiFi as soon as the call initiates.

You're still batting 1,000, Google.

So now I need to decide if I'm going to send this, my 4th Google Nexus 4 back (see the story about the previous three here, if you're interested), or hang on to it out of morbid fascination to see if Google ever does manage to fix it.

--Doug

Us Department of Commerce

Hmm.  You've got to wonder whether this visitor was taking a professional interest in potentially Evil E-Commerce, or if the person was just researching a potential new Nexus 4 phone.

Page Views: 2 Entry Page Time: 5 Feb 2013 17:12:30 Visit Length: 34 seconds Browser: Firefox 18.0 OS: Win7 Resolution: 1680x1050

*

Total Visits: 1 Location: Montgomery Village, Maryland, United States IP Address: U.s. Dept. Of Commerce (206.197.238.29) [Label IP Address] Referring URL: code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=42113 Entry Page: things-linux.blogspot.com/2013/02/what-is-evil.html Exit Page: things-linux.blogspot.com/2013/01/do-not-write-on-board.html

Fourth Time's The Charm

<Snicker>

I just ordered another Google Nexus 4.  LG is gearing up to produce a new batch, for which the estimated shipping date of 2 - 3 weeks matches the now-estimated release date of Android4.2.2, which is purported to contain a less-buggy Qualcomm wifi driver, and patches to the buggy 4.2.1 wifi and bluetooth code. Plus, it wouldn't surprise me if LG hasn't tweaked a manufacturing issue or two that I believe existed in their first production run.

Hey, what have I got to lose, aside from the $13 that Google charges to ship it to me?  Google pays the return shipping if the phone is broken.  At the very least I get some more writing material.  For those counting, this will be the fourth N4 that Google will have shipped me.  Maybe it won't be the fourth one I ship back.

Of course, I will have done this four times, so I guess I'm really going to be $52 out of pocket for the privilege of beta testing Google's fine product.

--Doug

What Is Evil?

Well, we have the answer to the question of when the WiFi and bluetooth problems with the Nexus 4 (and 7, and 10) Google devices will be fixed.  And we didn't get the answer from Google, we got it from the Android Police, who tell us that Android 4.2.2 will be released February/March.

4.2.2 is a bug fix release, in which they will reportedly fix things, oh, like WiFi and bluetooth on Nexus devices.

Which sort of brings up the question: is it evil of Google to sell product which they know is defective, and to do so for months without telling us?  And then to sort of, unannounced-like slip out a software release that silently fixes things?

Google's definition of what is evil appears to be somewhat flexible.

--Doug

Massive, Indifferent, Brooding Silence

Google is exercising their right to remain aloof to all of the complaints about their lackluster Nexus 4 (and 7, and 10) support.

I see them browsing this site regularly, though.  So we know that they know what we know.

Oh, look!  There's one now!

Page Views: 1 Entry Page Time: 4 Feb 2013 09:46:57 Browser: Google Webmaster Tools OS: Unknown Resolution: 1024x768

*

Total Visits: 1 Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada IP Address: Google (66.249.75.36) [Label IP Address] Referring URL: (No referring link) Visit Page: things-linux.blogspot.com/2013/01/letter-sent-to-google-press-offices.html

Everybody say "Eh!" to our Google colleagues up in Canada.

Oops, here's another, a bit closer to home:

Page Views: 2 Entry Page Time: 4 Feb 2013 10:48:21 Visit Length: 27 seconds Browser: Chrome 24.0 OS: MacOSX Resolution: 1920x1200

*

Total Visits: 5 Location: Mountain View, California, United States IP Address: Google (216.239.45.85) [Label IP Address] Referring URL: (No referring link) Entry Page: things-linux.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-natives-are-getting-restless.html Exit Page: things-linux.blogspot.com/

As a completely unrelated side note, I rode my motorcycle through Mountain View last summer.

So now that we all know that they know what we know about the buggy Nexus 4 (and 7, and 10), perhaps we should all just sit back, relax, and let Google brood further about when they might, or might not, get around to fixing their broken Android infrastructure.

But don't forget, they have the

--Doug

Epic Fail

So, at the end of the day, where are we?

Well, we're still three months down the road with a buggy Android 4.2 implementation that has impacted untold numbers of Android device users, and not just users who had the misfortune to purchase Google Nexus devices.

Why has it taken three months to even get even a grudging acknowledgement (which we finally got today in this Google code forum comment by a Google developer) that there are, in fact, wifi problems in Google's Android 4.2.1 that are affecting numerous models of Android devices.

It took three months to get Google to acknowledge what hundreds of dissatisfied customers have been telling them since November 20 about wifi bugs with the Nexus line of devices, but particularly with the Nexus 4. Still no estimate for time to a fix being available.

Why did it take three months to get just this far?  What should have been done differently? Time to get harsh: here's my assessment.

Apparently the Google devs have decided not to compare the Android code base from 4.1, where wifi and bluetooth were working, to the code base in 4.2.1 where they are only inconstantly working.

This is the approach any of my software teams would have taken.  There are numerous tools that can do diffs on code modules maintained in code repositories which can be used to identify differences between subsequent versions, and allow buggy sections to be reverted.

In a well-maintained code repository, replacing the buggy wifi and bluetooth code by reverting it to earlier working versions should have been accomplished in days, rather than the months that Google has taken so far.  Why they are trying to track down the reasons that their broken 4.2.1 code does not work with certain routers rather than simply reverting it to an earlier working version is a mystery to me.

As a poster commented in the code forum, one can easily demonstrate old 2.3 Gingerbread devices maintaining flawless wifi connections, side by side with 4.2 devices that either can't connect, or can't stay connected.

If it were me, I'd have replaced the devs working on this task with ones who could demonstrate professional software development, testing, and maintenance skills.  But then, *my* management cares about customer satisfaction.  Obviously, Google management does not.

Also, btw, I'd have fired each and every one of the Google Device Support staff who told customers calling in to complain about their Nexus 4 devices that there were no known issues with the phone.  I'd have fired their manager as well.  And maybe his/her manager too.  Then I'd have put a professional device support team in place that coordinated with the developer team to ensure that they were in possession of the facts when dealing with customer complaints.

There is lots of good information about the deficiencies of the internal workings of Google's product development and support operations that have become apparent through this Nexus/Android saga, which the competition should be taking note of.  If Google can't manage to sell and support Android phones and tablets that meet consumer demand, somebody else is going to come along and take that business away from them. 

Think about it: if tomorrow morning a new company came along and announced a new unlocked phone that matched the specs of the Nexus 4, at the same price, but which had working wifi and bluetooth, I'd buy it.

--Doug
doug@parrot-farm.net

The Natives Are Getting Restless

This could get ugly.  I just took a look at the Google code forum devoted to the Nexus wifi issues.  Here's what they're saying.

#796 d...@parrot-farm.net

It's pretty simple. It's so simple people are having trouble believing it. I had trouble believing it. 

Google hosed WiFi and Bluetooth with their 4.2 release. And they don't seem to be able, or capable of fixing it.

Today (12 hours ago) Delete comment

#797 d...@parrot-farm.net

Or willing, I should have added.

Today (6 hours ago)

#798 dhpow...@gmail.com

I would have bought a Nexus 4 when they became available again on the Play store here in the UK the other day but not now. Not after this. What a joke.

Today (2 hours ago)

#799 lynntas...@gmail.com

Well, I have an old Ginger Bread phone laying around working off of the same wireless network. This phone never drops the wifi connection but my Nexus 4 on the latest version of JellyBean using the same wifi  drops the connection(devices are side-by-side). How could this possibly be a router issue?

Today (55 minutes ago)

#800 lynntas...@gmail.com

So let me break this down succinctly so maybe you can grasp this.

1. Users are reporting wifi dropping on devices but they are also reporting that wifi does not drop for computers, iPads, and other similar devices on the same wireless network.
2. Older versions of the Android operating system do not drop wifi.
3. If this were a hardware issue with the Nexus products then 3 manufacturers have issues (the manufactures of the Nexus 10, the nexus 7, and the Nexus 4). Possible but very unlikely.

So, if it's not the routers (other devices work), and it's not the manufacturers (unlikely) then it must be the current Android operating system (older versions work).

What gets me is:
1. Your arrogance where you do not trust what your users are reporting and your arrogance that it can't possibly be a Google problem...it has to be a problem with dozens of router manufacturers.
2. Your belief that your users must be stupid where they can't possibly be seeing what they're reporting.

You know, it's perfectly okay to say "we messed up and a fix will be out in the next release". I think everyone here would have appreciated the truth more than the run-around you've been dishing out.

Today (25 minutes ago)

#801 ollyrick...@googlemail.com

Re: 800 - Absolutely spot on.

Today (4 minutes ago)

#802 aime...@gmail.com

This has become quite pathetic. 

Google used to be held under standards as being great at pushing timely updates and software fixes. Thats what separated them from the rest of the manufactures. 

At this point I will take my changes with possibly the m7 coming out. I almost regret getting rid of my one x at this point. Sure it had sense and was a bit locked down , but at least the thing worked.

Today (moments ago)

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

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

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