October 18th, 2009
DROID aims to make Apple iAnnoyed
As Wuher the scowling bartender said in Star Wars, AT&T Wireless and Apple doesn’t “serve their kind in here”, but the DROIDs are coming, like it or not.
Verizon recently launched its DROID Does web and TV campaign which is a preview of their upcoming Motorola DROID, their long-awaited iPhone-killer running Google’s Android 2.0 smartphone operating system.
Many carriers and device manufacturers have claimed to have iPhone-killers. They tried and failed to unseat the giant, which has a huge following of users and a massive application store. But right now, at least in the United States, iPhone is tied to AT&T Wireless, which has been riddled with 3G coverage problems, much to the frustration of the company’s subscribers. And if Verizon’s recent actions are any indication, iPhone is likely to stay where it is.
Click on the “Read the rest of this entry” link below for more.
Verizon has recently capitalized on AT&T’s coverage issues with their “There’s a map for that” TV campaign, which is a reference to Apple’s “There’s an App for that” series of advertisements that demonstrate the versatility of the iPhone with it’s App Store. Now Verizon has upped the ante with their “DROID DOES” commercial, which is a 400mm cannon volley right across the bow of the land of happy music and white earbuds.
The 30-second long commercial — which doesn’t even show the new smartphone, the previously code-named Motorola Sholes/Tao — puts it quite simply:
“We have a physical keyboard, we have multitasking, we can take 5 Megapixel photos with flash, our users can customize the UI, our development is Open Source, and our battery is replaceable. iPhone doesn’t do any of this.”
Whether this message and others which are sure to follow are enough to attract customers to the new DROID in droves remains to be seen, but honestly, I’m pretty psyched, and I’m probably going to buy one in November, the tentative launch timeframe for the new phone.
Since de-activating my BlackBerry only a few weeks ago I’ve been waiting to see what Verizon was going to come up with in terms of its smartphone strategy for 2010, with the hopes of signing up with them shortly.
The Verizon DROID, previously codenamed the Motorola Sholes.
I didn’t want another BlackBerry, I wasn’t signing up again with AT&T, and I definitely wasn’t going to go the T-Mobile route with Mytouch 3G because its coverage in my area of Northern New Jersey is absolutely abyssmal, as friends with T-Mobile phones that visit my house can’t get a single bar of reception and complain about coverage in Bergen County in general.
While indeed impressive from a pure software and technology perspective, I’m not interested in a Palm Pre because it’s currently running on Sprint, the smallest of the national 3G networks (Verizon is anticipating launching its own version in early 2010) and the hardware build quality of the device leaves much to be desired. And Windows Mobile 6.5? It just doesn’t do it for me.
Also Read: Verizon unveils 30-second ad for Droid Android phone; slams iPhone (Andrew Nusca)
I’m really looking forward to seeing what the DROID will offer in terms of its Google integration, corporate email sync capabilities, native Android applications as well as its overall performance. With its launch on Verizon, Google’s Android OS is about to be put to the test to see if it is now ready for prime time.
Do you think the DROID will make Apple very annoyed? Talk Back and Let Me Know.
Jason Perlow is a technologist with over two decades of experience integrating large heterogeneous multi-vendor computing environments in Fortune 500 companies. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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| 10/19/09
