Verizon Unveils Teaser for Upcoming Android 2.0 ‘Droid’ Phone, Pitched as Direct iPhone Rival

Thoughts:

  1. The whole site is Flash.
  2. The animation is pretty close to the commercial they showed during tonight’s Yankees-Angels game, which (I’ve heard) will be in heavy rotation during football games tomorrow.
  3. Those “iDon't”s, with the straight primes instead of proper apostrophes, make the commercial look slapdash.
  4. Seems pretty clear that Verizon isn’t getting the iPhone any time soon.
  5. The small print notes that “Droid” is a registered trademark of Lucasfilm Ltd., licensed to Verizon.
  6. It’ll be running Android 2.0.

Lastly, the big point: “Droid” is going to be a Verizon-owned brand. It’s purportedly a Motorola-manufactured phone, but Verizon is the licensee of the “Droid” trademark. (Which name, by the way, strikes me as the perfect name for an Android OS phone — sort of implicitly establishes it as the Android phone.) That’s the big thing. Verizon doesn’t see itself as a mere carrier for other companies’ phones. It sees itself as being bigger than the phones. It’s Verizon-vs.-Apple in this spot, not Verizon-vs.-AT&T.

★ Saturday, 17 October 2009