We knew Verizon Wireless would soon be throwing caution to the wind in an effort to sway uncommitted smartphone buyers towards Big Red, and it looks like the November-bound Motorola Droid will be VZW's anti-iPhone. The spot, which launched tonight and can be view in its entirety after the break, is a 30 second clip that begins by mocking Apple's cutesy music and iconic font typically seen in iPhone plugs. It reels off a number of things that the iPhone can't do, and then abruptly goes into full-on tease mode by flashing glimpses of a robot-controlled future and a tagline that simply states: "Droid Does." No shots of the actual Motorola Droid (or Sholes, as it was known in the past) are shown, but a dedicated teaser portal has already been erected; through that, we're told that the phone will boast Android 2.0 and a 5 megapixel camera. At this point, we'd say the gloves are definitely off -- AT&T, have anything to say for yourself, or is the iPhone doing just fine on its own?
Update: See that alien counter that's just sitting on the lower end of the teaser page? As reader Craig N. and a number of others have pointed out, a quick perusal through the page's XML file reveals the end of that timer to be October 30th -- not that we expect to be waiting that long for more Droid news, but it's something to keep in mind.
IMO, I find some of their arguments very pity, like not having a real keyboard (iPhone ain’t the only one,some Android phones don’t have one either) and also not being able to take nightshots (really Vzw, really…)
But why would Verizon want to burn any potential there was for them to get the iPhone on their network?
Lol @ an entire cellular network company advertising against just a SINGLE phone. Shows the power Apple and the iPhone have.
Verizon was already offered the iPhone, but they declined because Apple's offer didn't favor the carrier at all. Now, the iPhone is raking in tons of money for Apple but puts tremendous strain on AT&T's network, without compensating the carrier as much for it. Verizon knows it doesn't want the iPhone, so it shouldn't have any shame in targeting the device in its campaigns.
The reason why they are advertising against the iPhone is because it has been shown that the iPhone hasn't helped AT&T as much as you would think. The deep subsidies kill a lot of the profit that they get in a contract, the data heavy phone taxes their network and forces them to spend money on updating it, and the hit in reputation from their crappy coverage wouldn't have happened (or been as bad) if there wasn't so many people using the iPhone and using a lot of data.
I think that in the end Verizon will have made the smart choice by not getting the iPhone. I just wish it was for the right reason instead of Verizon not liking that Apple wouldn't let them gimp the hell out of the phone.
i tried to decipher the clock on droiddoes, i got it saying 12 days 4 hours 14 minutes. it read this at 7:46 pacific time...so im getting october 30th.
5MP? That means bigger file sizes, not higher image quality. Bigger files means more of a pain in the ass to mail to people, or send via MMS, or post on Facebook from your phone. When it comes to cameras, making the numbers bigger is not the most important thing.
Interchangeable battery? That means it's going to be bulkier. Thicker, heavier, more unwieldy. Additionally, the battery will not last as long as the iPhone's battery. Probably not even close. That's why it has to be interchangeable, because it sucks.
Physical keyboard is a completely subjective thing. Some people want one, some people don't. It's not "wrong" to not have one. Obviously a LOT of people prefer a full touchscreen.
True statements: iPhone continues to be the standard by which smartphones are measured.
This isn't the first or won't be the last attempt to dethrone the iPhone.
Every single iPhonekiller has had more features n better specs than iPhone but yet each and every single cell manufaturer on the planet has officially failed to dethrone the top dawg.
Add this motocrapola to a long list of iPhone wannabes clones. Agree?
The average consumer which by the way makes up 96% of people could give a rats ass about the supposedly feature deficiency of the iPhone. These useless features might only attract bloggers that complain about price of a $49 cell. Can this motocrapola be docked ? No fail will equivolate to weak sales. Can motocrapola truely replace an iPod touch like the iPhone ? No. Motocrapola have iTunes? No .fail. Will it sell zero to 1 million in 72 hours like iPhone did on June 19. 2009? No. Fail dies it have 90,000 apps n games? No. Fail. So with that said if motocrapola fails to sell million cells in first weekend it will officially not be the iPhonekiller. Next.
1. Weak sales because it doesn't have a dock...seriously? Nobody gives a damn about docking. A USB cable will do just fine.
2. How does the iPhone truly replace an iPod Touch? You make it seem as if people get the Touch and then upgrade to the iPhone; people generally get the former if they aren't on AT&T (or don't want to pay the data fees), therefore not being in the market for the iPhone anyway. Most of these folks have other smartphones or even dumbphones.
3. For many people, iTunes itself is a failure. The beauty of an open handset is that you aren't locked into Apple's ecosystem, which it rules with an iron fist. I for one hate iTunes and I'm glad I'm not bound to it.
4. Fine, it may not sell the numbers the iPhone did. I'll give you that.
5. How many of those 90,000 apps are worth installing, anyway?
Jasmine - WRONG. You can load any songs you want, from any source, into iTunes and sync it with your iPhone. You are NOT locked in to using the iTunes store. I've done that plenty of times with MP3s I bought from Amazon and songs I've ripped form CDs. The lock-in argument is 100% fail.
As for your last point, you could say the same thing about Windows applications. There sure are a lot of them, but how many do YOU have installed on your hard drive? The point of having more apps is more choice. This is the exact same argument Windows users always use when arguing that the Mac doesn't have enough applications.
"5. How many of those 90,000 apps are worth installing, anyway?"
More than you can ever fit on any phone actually.
Also, the whole "lol fart app lol" thing is getting kind of old. Serious question: do you really view the app store as a "minus" when it comes to the iPhone? Maybe you didn't get the memo, but the App store is HUGE. Your beloved Android platform would KILL to have the same library of the App Store, fart apps and all. All the trash apps are just a byproduct of a successful platform. Anyone with a brain would know this of course.
What I mean by "iTunes ecosystem" is that you have to use the software if you want to put anything onto an iPod or iPhone. (Sure, Winamp and other programs have iPod plug-ins, but none of them give you as much control over the device as iTunes does. Also they're still prone to bugs.)
I just don't like iTunes as a program, simple as that. I know plenty of people who do, but I'm not one of them.
I agree with you entirely. I was merely arguing against Truth's point of "droid doesn't have 90,000 apps therefore it fails" statement. Apps should be measured by quality, not quantity. I don't care if a platform has 900 or 9,000 or 90,000 apps, as long as the ones I find actually useful are available to me. I don't doubt that the iPhone offers many great and innovative apps; I just think that this "Truth" guy touts the large number of available apps as if anything less makes a phone a failure.
Oh great, not this again. Didn't they learn their "iPhone killer" lessons the first and second times around with the LG Voyager and the first-gen Blackberry Storm?
Hopefully this taunting works, while everything short of multitasking in that video I don't care about I won't complain should that stuff make it's way into the iPhone.
Any CEO will agree with me when I say succes is measured by sales. This is smething fanboys bloggers fail to see jusdgement is clouded by fanboyism n success of the apple. There hatred doesn't give them ability to think logically that's what cracks me up. Motocrapola sell 1 million in 72 hours then we can sit down n talk.
Yeah the iPhone-killer commercials weren't funny or accurate the first time around when Sprint did them for the Instinct. Look how well that worked out for them? Oh wait, their flagship phone is going to the competition in January. So, I guess, like, it didn't work so well? What happened to making a product and selling it based on what it does, not what the competitions doesn't?
iThink that when Verizon releases a phone that can stand up the iPhone then they can open they're mouths. Yeah. I'm glad to see "droid" out there because having another big name out there will just give apple a reason to stay on their feet. A lot of the points made in that commercial were really stupid. No widget support? seriously? I'll take the app store instead of some dumbass weather widget or something. And no physical keyboard? I like the fact that my phone is very slim and I can type just as fast on it now then I could my old BB. Do your homework next time verizon. and for android i hope it gets better over time. Because I'm tired of everyone coveting my iphone. lOl.
... and I like the fact that my G1 has a physical keyboard. What's your point? Different people like different things.
As I've said before the iphone may have a really nice UI but mine sits on the shelf while I carry my G1 with me. The reason? I like the fact that I can do what I want on my phone not what someone tells me I can do.
The stock battery on a G1 may suck but I have an extended one that lasts longer than a day and
a) I'm never away from a power socket for more than a day b) I live and work in an area where the signal sucks (for both devices) which runs the battery down quicker.
Yes the extended battery makes the phone thicker but I don't care. Phone thickness isn't one of my critical criteria when selecting a device.
In August of 2007 2 months after the iPhone was released the phrase "iphonekiller" was coined by helio. Due to the helio ocean did have wayyy more features than iPhone 2g $600. That still wasn't enough to even make a dent in iPhone sales n movement revolution was occurring in front of our eyes. The greatest ecosystem was being created along with what would raise the bar n cause all major cell manufacturers scrambling to the drawing board to create a clone that would compete. Then came lg voyager feature rich keyboard removable battery flash. That was a joke it is now deceased. Next instinct. Fail. Next new bb 8000 series. Fail. G1 android. Fail. Storm fail. Next nokia expres fail. Next Sony experia fail. Next. Lg dare. Fail. Next. All kinds of htc failures. Next. Every major cell provider has officially failed vzw sprint tmobil boost virgin to partner n create the iphonekiller. iPhone was unveiled Jan 5. 2007. Motocrapola release nov 2009 almost 3 years after iPhone was born n jobs said that device he was holding will revolutionize cell industry on a global scale. Truth
This reminds me of the ads Sprint used to do for the Instinct in order to compete against the iPhone. We all know by now how this fiasco turned out. So let's see how it goes for Verizon this time around. Major LOLs when it's gonna turn and bite them in the *** just like it did for Sprint.
The career I have chosen is heavily electronics it pays well $84,000 a year. I guess u van say I hate apple. Prior to June of 2007. I had never purchased an apple product. In my entire life I have inky purchased 1 apple product iPhone. This leads u to believe my opininions are neutral n are solely based on experience.
I think your intense Apple fanaticism is seriously effecting they way you're trying to convey your rage/hatred for anyone else who uses any other type of phone (even though we have something called, oh I don't know, freedom to use whatever we want). Seriously, I think you need to step away from the keyboard and take a nice long vacation. You know, cool down. You make, what, $80K a year? Take a nice long vacation to the Bahamas or Costa Rica.... somewhere, anywhere. Just be away from the internet, as I think it's causing you much more anxiety than what's necessary for something like a cellular phone.
such a shame... I was really starting to think/hope Verizon might get an iPhone or maybe SOME KIND of Apple device in 2010. But these ads don't bode well for a good relationship with Apple in the future.
Now that we've thrown 'em off the trail, use the form below to get in touch with the people at Engadget. Please fill in all of the required fields because they're required.
posted October 17th 2009 10:04PM
He's talking about Rogers having the iPhone in Canada...
iDo drop calls. iDo lack Flash. iDo have fear that the Droid will knock the ra out of me.
IMO, I find some of their arguments very pity, like not having a real keyboard (iPhone ain’t the only one,some Android phones don’t have one either) and also not being able to take nightshots (really Vzw, really…)
But why would Verizon want to burn any potential there was for them to get the iPhone on their network?
Lol @ an entire cellular network company advertising against just a SINGLE phone. Shows the power Apple and the iPhone have.
Verizon was already offered the iPhone, but they declined because Apple's offer didn't favor the carrier at all. Now, the iPhone is raking in tons of money for Apple but puts tremendous strain on AT&T's network, without compensating the carrier as much for it. Verizon knows it doesn't want the iPhone, so it shouldn't have any shame in targeting the device in its campaigns.
The reason why they are advertising against the iPhone is because it has been shown that the iPhone hasn't helped AT&T as much as you would think. The deep subsidies kill a lot of the profit that they get in a contract, the data heavy phone taxes their network and forces them to spend money on updating it, and the hit in reputation from their crappy coverage wouldn't have happened (or been as bad) if there wasn't so many people using the iPhone and using a lot of data.
I think that in the end Verizon will have made the smart choice by not getting the iPhone. I just wish it was for the right reason instead of Verizon not liking that Apple wouldn't let them gimp the hell out of the phone.
www.droiddoes.com
i tried to decipher the clock on droiddoes, i got it saying 12 days 4 hours 14 minutes. it read this at 7:46 pacific time...so im getting october 30th.
anyone bored enough to check? haha
Yep. It's the same for me (I'm also on Pacific time).
So... another iClone "iPhone killer"?
Yawn.
So....another ipwn troll
yawn.
thats why there's jailbreaking... owned
How does jailbreaking help bring the iPhone a 5MP camera, an interchangeable battery, or a physical keyboard?
As far as those three things:
5MP? That means bigger file sizes, not higher image quality. Bigger files means more of a pain in the ass to mail to people, or send via MMS, or post on Facebook from your phone. When it comes to cameras, making the numbers bigger is not the most important thing.
Interchangeable battery? That means it's going to be bulkier. Thicker, heavier, more unwieldy. Additionally, the battery will not last as long as the iPhone's battery. Probably not even close. That's why it has to be interchangeable, because it sucks.
Physical keyboard is a completely subjective thing. Some people want one, some people don't. It's not "wrong" to not have one. Obviously a LOT of people prefer a full touchscreen.
@Jack The Droid has a full touchscreen.
(It also has a keyboard.)
True statements:
iPhone continues to be the standard by which smartphones are measured.
This isn't the first or won't be the last attempt to dethrone the iPhone.
Every single iPhonekiller has had more features n better specs than iPhone but yet each and every single cell manufaturer on the planet has officially failed to dethrone the top dawg.
Add this motocrapola to a long list of iPhone wannabes clones.
Agree?
ahh i was a little late on the post...my numbers confirm Tmacfan4321 's time...
my contract isnt up on the 30th damn it
I believe the timer on that website will end on May 13th, 2010.
How the hell did you get that date?
You mean December 21, 2012.
This is MLB, so it should probably be:
"Roids Does"
The average consumer which by the way makes up 96% of people could give a rats ass about the supposedly feature deficiency of the iPhone.
These useless features might only attract bloggers that complain about price of a $49 cell.
Can this motocrapola be docked ? No fail will equivolate to weak sales.
Can motocrapola truely replace an iPod touch like the iPhone ? No.
Motocrapola have iTunes? No .fail.
Will it sell zero to 1 million in 72 hours like iPhone did on June 19. 2009? No. Fail
dies it have 90,000 apps n games? No. Fail.
So with that said if motocrapola fails to sell million cells in first weekend it will officially not be the iPhonekiller. Next.
1. Weak sales because it doesn't have a dock...seriously? Nobody gives a damn about docking. A USB cable will do just fine.
2. How does the iPhone truly replace an iPod Touch? You make it seem as if people get the Touch and then upgrade to the iPhone; people generally get the former if they aren't on AT&T (or don't want to pay the data fees), therefore not being in the market for the iPhone anyway. Most of these folks have other smartphones or even dumbphones.
3. For many people, iTunes itself is a failure. The beauty of an open handset is that you aren't locked into Apple's ecosystem, which it rules with an iron fist. I for one hate iTunes and I'm glad I'm not bound to it.
4. Fine, it may not sell the numbers the iPhone did. I'll give you that.
5. How many of those 90,000 apps are worth installing, anyway?
Jasmine - WRONG. You can load any songs you want, from any source, into iTunes and sync it with your iPhone. You are NOT locked in to using the iTunes store. I've done that plenty of times with MP3s I bought from Amazon and songs I've ripped form CDs. The lock-in argument is 100% fail.
As for your last point, you could say the same thing about Windows applications. There sure are a lot of them, but how many do YOU have installed on your hard drive? The point of having more apps is more choice. This is the exact same argument Windows users always use when arguing that the Mac doesn't have enough applications.
@Jasmine
"5. How many of those 90,000 apps are worth installing, anyway?"
More than you can ever fit on any phone actually.
Also, the whole "lol fart app lol" thing is getting kind of old. Serious question: do you really view the app store as a "minus" when it comes to the iPhone? Maybe you didn't get the memo, but the App store is HUGE. Your beloved Android platform would KILL to have the same library of the App Store, fart apps and all. All the trash apps are just a byproduct of a successful platform. Anyone with a brain would know this of course.
A classic example of The Fox and the Grapes.
@Jack
What I mean by "iTunes ecosystem" is that you have to use the software if you want to put anything onto an iPod or iPhone. (Sure, Winamp and other programs have iPod plug-ins, but none of them give you as much control over the device as iTunes does. Also they're still prone to bugs.)
I just don't like iTunes as a program, simple as that. I know plenty of people who do, but I'm not one of them.
@ridley
I agree with you entirely. I was merely arguing against Truth's point of "droid doesn't have 90,000 apps therefore it fails" statement. Apps should be measured by quality, not quantity. I don't care if a platform has 900 or 9,000 or 90,000 apps, as long as the ones I find actually useful are available to me. I don't doubt that the iPhone offers many great and innovative apps; I just think that this "Truth" guy touts the large number of available apps as if anything less makes a phone a failure.
Oh great, not this again. Didn't they learn their "iPhone killer" lessons the first and second times around with the LG Voyager and the first-gen Blackberry Storm?
Apparently not.
Hopefully this taunting works, while everything short of multitasking in that video I don't care about I won't complain should that stuff make it's way into the iPhone.
Any CEO will agree with me when I say succes is measured by sales.
This is smething fanboys bloggers fail to see jusdgement is clouded by fanboyism n success of the apple. There hatred doesn't give them ability to think logically that's what cracks me up. Motocrapola sell 1 million in 72 hours then we can sit down n talk.
Hopefully every CEO would use a spell checker
Yeah the iPhone-killer commercials weren't funny or accurate the first time around when Sprint did them for the Instinct. Look how well that worked out for them? Oh wait, their flagship phone is going to the competition in January. So, I guess, like, it didn't work so well? What happened to making a product and selling it based on what it does, not what the competitions doesn't?
you mean like the im a mac commercials? its just apple getting some of its own
iThink that when Verizon releases a phone that can stand up the iPhone then they can open they're mouths. Yeah. I'm glad to see "droid" out there because having another big name out there will just give apple a reason to stay on their feet. A lot of the points made in that commercial were really stupid. No widget support? seriously? I'll take the app store instead of some dumbass weather widget or something. And no physical keyboard? I like the fact that my phone is very slim and I can type just as fast on it now then I could my old BB.
Do your homework next time verizon.
and for android i hope it gets better over time. Because I'm tired of everyone coveting my iphone. lOl.
... and I like the fact that my G1 has a physical keyboard. What's your point? Different people like different things.
As I've said before the iphone may have a really nice UI but mine sits on the shelf while I carry my G1 with me. The reason? I like the fact that I can do what I want on my phone not what someone tells me I can do.
The stock battery on a G1 may suck but I have an extended one that lasts longer than a day and
a) I'm never away from a power socket for more than a day
b) I live and work in an area where the signal sucks (for both devices) which runs the battery down quicker.
Yes the extended battery makes the phone thicker but I don't care. Phone thickness isn't one of my critical criteria when selecting a device.
Typical iPhone fanboy argument goes like this:
1) The 5 or 6 advantages other smartphones have on the iPhone don't matter.
2) The 2 advantages the iPhone has on the competition are deal-breakers.
Hope it has a sim card slot/gsm radio. Then its a deal
The tag line writes itself..."This is the Droid you're looking for..."
In August of 2007 2 months after the iPhone was released the phrase "iphonekiller" was coined by helio. Due to the helio ocean did have wayyy more features than iPhone 2g $600.
That still wasn't enough to even make a dent in iPhone sales n movement revolution was occurring in front of our eyes. The greatest ecosystem was being created along with what would raise the bar n cause all major cell manufacturers scrambling to the drawing board to create a clone that would compete. Then came lg voyager feature rich keyboard removable battery flash. That was a joke it is now deceased. Next instinct. Fail. Next new bb 8000 series. Fail. G1 android. Fail. Storm fail. Next nokia expres fail. Next Sony experia fail. Next. Lg dare. Fail. Next. All kinds of htc failures. Next. Every major cell provider has officially failed vzw sprint tmobil boost virgin to partner n create the iphonekiller. iPhone was unveiled Jan 5. 2007. Motocrapola release nov 2009 almost 3 years after iPhone was born n jobs said that device he was holding will revolutionize cell industry on a global scale. Truth
Bold bold commercial. Now they have to back that up.
This reminds me of the ads Sprint used to do for the Instinct in order to compete against the iPhone. We all know by now how this fiasco turned out. So let's see how it goes for Verizon this time around. Major LOLs when it's gonna turn and bite them in the *** just like it did for Sprint.
The career I have chosen is heavily electronics it pays well $84,000 a year. I guess u van say I hate apple. Prior to June of 2007. I had never purchased an apple product. In my entire life I have inky purchased 1 apple product iPhone.
This leads u to believe my opininions are neutral n are solely based on experience.
@ Truth
You sound like a apple fanatic from some of your previous posts. BTW: I hope you do think 84K is alot. Some of my traders make that in weeks.
SP
I wonder who would pay you $84,000 a year, considering your grasp on English usage.
@ Jasmine
Look whos talking. If i made 84K in my industry, ill quit. BTW, how the day job?
SP
@SP
My comment was targeted toward Truth, not to you. I didn't mean to insult you or anything.
By the way, I'm a college student, so $84k a year sounds amazing to me!
I think your intense Apple fanaticism is seriously effecting they way you're trying to convey your rage/hatred for anyone else who uses any other type of phone (even though we have something called, oh I don't know, freedom to use whatever we want). Seriously, I think you need to step away from the keyboard and take a nice long vacation. You know, cool down. You make, what, $80K a year? Take a nice long vacation to the Bahamas or Costa Rica.... somewhere, anywhere. Just be away from the internet, as I think it's causing you much more anxiety than what's necessary for something like a cellular phone.
such a shame... I was really starting to think/hope Verizon might get an iPhone or maybe SOME KIND of Apple device in 2010. But these ads don't bode well for a good relationship with Apple in the future.
Sad but true.
iDon't have a real keyboard: Some people like the touchscreen keyboard.
For those that don't like it, ever heard of iTwinge?
iDon't run simultaneous apps: So what? There are push notifications.
iDon't take 5-megapixel pictures: Megapixels =/= Quality
iDon't customize: Who cares about the background image when it's full of apps?
iDon't run widgets: 85,000 apps???
iDon't allow open development: The iPhone SDK is fine.
iDon't take pictures in the dark: Who takes pictures when it's pitch black and you can't see?
iDon't have interchangeable batteries: My current phone's back plate and battery always fall out.
iDon't Fail. DroidDoes.