1 comment

Recently, my husband’s Motorola Droid with Android 2.2.2 started acting weird- buttons were clicked automatically, apps would open/close on its own and the phone would not respond to our commands. In short, it seemed like the phone has a mind of its own (and its a scary situation when machines take control!). A power cycle did nothing to help the situation.

Naturally, my first reaction was to assume that the phone was infected by a malware app. After we established that no app was recently downloaded that could have caused the issue, we decided to remove the battery (while the phone is on) , wait for a minute or so and then put it back again. That had no effect either.

We decided to call Verizon. When I described the problem to the operator, she was not surprised- In fact, she knew exactly what I was talking about. So looks like this issue is not uncommon. The operator advised me to do the battery removal thing which she indicated resolved the issue in most cases. Well, I did it again just in case things would be different this time . No impact. She then asked me to dial *228(select Option 1) to do a software update . That seemed to work- I was thrilled.

The next day, the problem resurfaced for a bit and then went away.  I later learnt that couple of my colleagues had the exact same issue with their Droids’ (Android 2.2.1 in their case) . The phone seemed to be behaving normally for a week and we stopped panicking (well- just imagine life without your smartphone!). The problem occurred again yesterday.

We are due for a phone upgrade soon.  I am not sure about my husband’s plans but I have my mind set on the iPhone 5.