The Download: 48 App Updates and Counting — New Gallery, Assist, Camera, and More.

It’s only been seven months since Moto X launched, and ever since then our team has pushed hard to execute on a strategy of releasing apps quickly and then iterating nimbly. This was our strategy from the beginning, and we hope our fans are feeling the benefit across all our products. With our Camera update today, we mark 48 updates since that August launch!

But that’s only one of the updates that we’ve turned out the past two weeks. And fear not, there is still more to come.

Here’s the latest Download.

Press to Snap - We designed the Camera app to help people take pictures more quickly and more naturally. That’s why you can easily snap a photo by touching anywhere on the screen and on Moto X you can launch your camera with two twists of your wrist. For those that prefer the click of a physical button, though, this new update lets you take a picture by just pressing the volume button on your Moto X, Moto G, or Droid Ultra.

Scroll Down Memory Lane - Our new Motorola Gallery update brings a new way to browse through your photos in the timeline, making it easy to navigate galleries large and small. Just swipe though each event to see your photos. This, along with other changes, streamlines our interface across the app. The result is a more beautiful and more elegant gallery, and you’re able to see more of your own photos and videos wherever you look.

Get It Together with Assist - Motorola Assist helps you out when you’re busy—reading messages aloud while you’re driving, helping you sleep in peace, and more. The app’s meeting mode, in particular, knows when you’re busy based on your calendar and silences calls when you don’t want to be bothered. With this new update to Assist, you can choose what calendars you want to use with meeting mode. So if it’s OK to be interrupted during your workout schedule but not OK to be interrupted during meetings and family time—you can make the choice.

Get Help in One Place - New to Google Play is our Help app, formerly called Moto Care. With Motorola Help, you can learn all about your phone in one place and get easy access to real people at Motorola Customer Care when you need to. Pro tip: When you register your phone at http://www.motorola.com/support, you can get personalized tips and protect your phone if lost.

Enhanced Active Display - We’ve squashed some bugs! Motorola Active Display now runs more smoothly.

It’s still early in the year. We have a lot to do! We hope you like this set of updates. Please let us know what you think of our latest on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook.

Posted by Punit Soni, Product Management

Moto 360: It’s Time.

It’s time for a watch that looks and feels great and gives you the information you need, when you need it.

It’s time for Moto 360, a truly modern timepiece, designed by Motorola, powered by Android Wear.

The wristwatch has been through several evolutions since it first became a popular fashion accessory more than a 100 years ago. From mechanical to electronic movements, analog to digital faces, the wristwatch has been reinvented several times over, but the basic design has endured for a century because of its elegance and usefulness ‘at a glance.’ Our vision for Moto 360 was to celebrate that history as we reimagined the wristwatch for the future.

Moto 360 keeps you on time and up to date without taking you out of the moment or distracting you, telling you what you need to know before you know you need it through subtle alerts and notifications. With just a twist of the wrist you can see who’s emailing or calling, what time your next meeting is or a friend’s latest social post.

Moto 360 also responds to your voice. Just say “Ok Google” to ask questions like who won the Stanford vs. New Mexico game or what time your flight leaves, or to get stuff done like scheduling an appointment, sending a text, setting an alarm or taking a note.

Most importantly, Moto 360’s iconic design, featuring a round face and premium materials, feels comfortable and familiar on your wrist. It’s everything you need, with a look that you want.

Moto 360 will be available in a variety of styles globally in Summer 2014, starting in the US. To learn more about Moto 360 and stay up to date on product news, click here.




Posted by Lior Ron, CVP Product Management


IMAGES: Click this link for images (you agree to our license terms when downloading images).

Media Note: To learn more about the unique design elements of Moto 360, join Jim Wicks, head of Motorola Consumer Experience Design, for a live Hangout on Air on Wednesday, March 19 at 1pm CT. During the Hangout, we will share more specifics on the unique design elements of the watch and answer related questions. To participate, you can register on our Google+ page here.

Developer note: We want to hear what you think! We can’t wait to see what great apps you’ll create for the distinct round face of Moto 360. Share your ideas with us here.

Wear your pride on your sleeve, and your phone!

Moto Maker lets you express yourself and your style through your phone. Now, you can express your school spirit too! Just in time for the tournament, we’re introducing the College Collection, a range of college-inspired Moto X customization options that allow you to showcase your favorite school colors. We took a look at college colors across the board and added nine new back colors and three new accents to our Moto Maker palette so you can create the ultimate fan phone.

Starting today you can visit our College Collection design gallery and select from pre-configured school color combinations and clear cases1 with school logos and team names for up to 40 schools and counting. Don’t see your favorite team? Mix and match with the new color palette to create your perfect combination.

A custom Moto X from the College Collection is now available starting at the everyday price of $399 off-contract or $49 with a new two year contract. Currently in college? We’d like to sweeten the deal with a student discount2. Register at motorola.com/college with a valid .edu address and you can get an off-contract Moto X for the discounted price of $339.

The College Collection is just one of the many ways to get customization inspiration for your Moto X. Visit the new design gallery curated by our Moto Maker team and designers for more ideas and create yours today!


Posted by Ravi Thakkar, Group Product Manager


1 Officially Licensed College cases by Uncommon, cases available at an additional cost
2 Must have a valid .edu email address to receive discount

The Download: New Touchless Control Command, Selective Migrate, Smart SIMs, and More.

We’ve got a bunch of new updates to share with you all. We’re keeping the momentum going this week with a swath of new enhancements that both tighten up the backend and bring some new goodies to the user experience.

Here’s the latest Download:

What’s Up with Touchless Control - Hands tied? Our latest update to Touchless Control introduces a new convenient command: Just say “OK Google Now, What’s up?”—your phone will read aloud your latest notifications. 

Migrate What You Want - Our Motorola Migrate app has been a hit for users transferring their information from their old phone to their new Moto X, Moto G, or Droid phones. But we heard from some people that it would be even more useful if they could select what content to transfer. With this update, we’ve made this possible for users moving from an old Android phone to choose what kind of content they want to migrate. This update also automatically imports SIM contacts to your preferred Google account and makes it easier to transfer the content you want if your old phone’s content is bigger than your new phone’s available memory (nothing like a little early Spring cleaning!).

Getting Smart with SIMs - Here’s a little treat for users in Latin America and India who have Moto G that supports dual SIMs: With the latest KitKat upgrade, we’ve included a new feature called Automatic SIM Selection. If you typically select the SIM for every outgoing call, this feature will suggest the preferred SIM to use based on the one that you’ve used to call friends in the past. Moto G users with dual SIMs can simply switch the feature on in their Settings. For more information, check out the FAQs.

Customize Your Active Display - Active Display quietly displays what you need to know with just a touch—and with this update you can now enable and disable notification vibrations using your phone’s Sound settings. Also, did you know that you can control which apps send notifications to Active Display? Just go to Settings > Active Display to choose what apps are important enough to you.

An Enhanced Assist - Motorola Assist—which recognizes when you shouldn’t be bothered and helps you out while you’re driving—now works even smarter to adapt to your working style in meetings. This update allows you to block off personal time in your calendar but still take calls. We’ve also made an important enhancements in Bluetooth connectivity that allow even more users to integrate Assist with their car’s built-in Bluetooth carkit.

We’re continuing to sprint after these evolutions, quickly innovating on both user-facing experience and backend technologies. Please let us know what you think of our latest on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook.

Posted by Punit Soni, Product Management

Buggy Night, the latest Spotlight Story, now playing on a Moto X near you

Last year, on October 29th, we introduced the world to a mouse, a hat and a little windy trouble brought to life by immersive storytelling technology. That was the first Spotlight Story. It was called Windy Day.

Ready for another story? It might be the same forest, but things are definitely different once the sun goes down.

Continuing our work with award-winning storytellers, Buggy Night was directed by veteran animator Mark Oftedal along with much of the Windy Day team, including Caldecott winning illustrator and writer Jon Klassen and Academy award-winning producer Karen Dufilho-Rosen.

With each Spotlight Story we’re uncovering more ground -- both technologically and creatively. We’re continuing to explore novel storytelling possibilities for mobile. Possibilities that are revealed when mobile is considered a true medium, rather than just a smaller screen. We’re finding out what happens at the intersection of hardware, software, and content.

Technologically, Buggy Night takes interactivity and immersiveness to the next level. For this story, we created seamless interactivity by leveraging Android 4.4 KitKat graphics capabilities applied to a true 360-degree environment. Creatively, this meant that we had to tell a story that unfolds where you choose to look -- and where you don’t.

Keep an eye on your Moto X and see what happens when your phone catches the latest Spotlight bug going around.

If you missed our first Spotlight Story, Windy Day, you can check it out in the new Library section of Spotlight Player. And to keep up to date on all things Spotlight Stories, follow our Tumblr or join our Google+ Community.

Posted by Rachid El-Guerrab, Advanced Technology and Projects (ATAP)