• by Thom Forbes  @tforbes, August 2, 2013

Google yesterday took the wraps off the Moto X, a smartphone that is intended to answer a question on the minds of a lot of analysts, journalists and freelance pundits: why in the world did it shell out $12.5 billion to acquire a hardware brand that has been fading faster than a call on a 2G network. One thing for sure you can say about the new device: it’s listening to its consumers, not the naysayers.

“You can say to the phone, ‘OK, Google Now. Call so-and-so,’ or ‘Find a sushi restaurant nearby,’ or ‘Did the Mets win last night?’” writesBloomberg Businessweek’s Sam Grobart. “Since Google structures more and more of its search data, questions like the last one can be processed and answered via a synthetic voice. (‘No. They lost 3-2 to the Marlins,’ the phone replies.)”

Unlike the iPhone and many Significant Others, you don’t have to press any buttons to get it to pay attention. Its ears are always open.

Among other Moto X features are a 4.7-inch touch screen –- a size between the iPhone 5 and Samsung’s Galaxy S4 -– a rounded back that fits into the palm, a battery purported to run for 24 hours or more without a charge and the ability to take 10-megapixel photographs as quickly as a gunslinger in a shootout.

And, writesTime’s Harry McCracken, “using a slick website called Motomaker, you’ll be able to select from 18 backside color options, two front-side ones (black and white) and seven trim choices.” Coming soon: an option for a real wood back. “Forget black or white. Moto Maker lets you customize the Moto X exactly to your liking with over 2,000 unique combinations,” writes GigaOm’s Alex Colon.

The phone will be out at the end of this month or the beginning of September with a base price of $199 for the 16GB model and $249 for 32GB. It will be carried by all the major carriers in the U.S.

If you’re interested in more details about “what makes it different and who is it for,” GigaOm’s Kevin C. Tofel tracked down some answers. As far as the target goes, the design is the “direct result of numerous studies [Motorola] did on the average smartphone user,” Tofel writes.

Indeed, it’s an “Android phone for the masses,” Tofel writes. The smartphone masses, that is –- which might be a bottom-line miscalculation.

Alekstra telecom analyst Tero Kuittinen tells the New York Times’ Brian X. Chen and Claire Cain Miller that Google killed Motorola’s line of low-cost cell phones after acquiring the company -- a move he calls “bad timing.” Most growth, Kuittinen says, is coming from manufacturers offering cheap smartphones in emerging markets. “They’ve really lost momentum, they’ve lost distribution, and they’ve lost shelf space.” 

“The stakes are big for Google,” Chen and Cain Miller point out. “Finding success with the new phone could lead to a new source of revenue and a way to get more users to view the company’s ads.”

Indeed, in a Wired piece, “The Inside Story Of The Moto X: The Phone That Reveals Why Google Bought Motorola,” Steven Levy writes that uttering “three magic words … ‘Okay, Google Now’” opens up the digital universe to the user. And the user to Google.

“The Android mobile operating system was always intended as a gateway drug to Google products and ads,” Levy writes. “(‘We don’t monetize the things we create,’ Android creator Andy Rubin once told me. ‘We monetize users.’) And Moto X is a tool to free-base Google.”

Motorola CEO Dennis Woodsidechooses a less-pharmaceutical analogy, telling Levy: “Google Now is a high-speed on-ramp to all that great stuff that Google is building.” But the device itself, he emphasizes at the end of the piece, has its own family tree, so please don’t call it “the Google phone.”

“People don’t associate Google with phones,” he tells Levy. “Motorola’s the brand that resonates to consumers.”

In the Wall Street Journal, Ryan Knutson, Spencer E. Ante and Thomas Gryta expose some “culture clashes” that purportedly occurred between the Moto X developers and Google’s Android team, particularly under former Android chief Andy Rubin, pointing out that the trophy phone does not carry the latest version of the OS. 

But, they write, “Motorola executives say the Moto X will soon receive the software through an over-the-air upgrade.” CEO Woodside “chalked up Motorola's inability to get the latest version of Android on its new phone to bad timing and said it shows that the company is independent from its parent.”

With a marketing budget of upwards of $500 million, as the Wall Street Journal’s Amir Efrati revealed last month, that independence seems akin to a kid living off campus at an Ivy League college on his parent’s mega-dimes.