The first love child resulting from Google's Motorola acquisition will be named Moto X and will be almost entirely made in the United States, going on sale by the end of the summer. It will also use sensors to be made aware of its environment and alter the user interface accordingly.
Speaking in an interview at the All Things D conference this week, Motorola's head Dennis Woodside said to also expect a handful of other smartphones from the company by October.
The Moto X, presumably the next flagship Android device from the manufacturer, will be built in a large facility outside Fort Worth, Texas that was previously used to build Nokia handsets. The 500,000 square foot facility will employ around 2,000 people. This would make the Moto X the first smartphone to be built in the USA, although only 70 percent of the manufacturing will take place here, with processors coming from Taiwan and OLED displays from Korea.
A really smart smartphone
Dennis Woodside was stingy with other details and specs about the Moto X. What he did say is that the phone will feature several sensors tightly integrated for efficient power consumption. Such sensors will know when the phone is taken out of your pocket, or even when you are travelling in a car, and adapt the interface accordingly, he explained.
Several carriers are apparently on board to sell the Moto X, Motorola's chief added. This would be a new move for Motorola, which in recent years has limited its smartphones to certain carriers, mainly Verizon for flagship Android devices. Based on this, it doesn't sound like the Moto X will be a Nexus device, so it could mean the phone could still sport many of the artifices manufacturers add on top of stock Android to differentiate their devices from the competition. However, earlier this year, Motorola's design chief Jim Wicks indicated that stock Android will be present on upcoming phones.
Danielle McNally, Motorola's PR head, clarified some other points in a follow-up press release. She said: "There are several business advantages to having our Illinois- and California-based designers and engineers much closer to our factory. For instance, we'll be able to iterate on design much faster, create a leaner supply chain, respond much more quickly to purchasing trends and demands, and deliver devices to people here much more quickly." She also added that Motorola's global manufacturing partner will remain Flextronics and they'll continue to assemble other devices in China and Brazil.
