Those of you who can watch TV on your couches without having to stand up and hold the antenna a la the Statue of Liberty — thanks again, FCC! — may have seen the “iDon’t” Verizon ad yesterday. It starts out all Apple-ly with happy music. But the words don’t match. A litany of the iPhone failings — it can’t run simultaneous apps, take 5 megapixel pictures, run widgets, support open development, etc. — scroll by in a clean, black-on-white Apple-ly typeface. Then it goes all “District 9″ at the end with the tagline “Droid Does“.

In case you don’t get it, Verizon will be introducing an Android-based phone called the Motorola Droid later this month. Boy Genius Report has played with it and in their first review they used the words awesome, amazing (2x) and impressive (also 2x) in only 311 words.

Droid will run Android 2.0, which among other things, will support Microsoft Exchange. I hope they push that upgrade to my T-Mobile G1 soon so that I can finally check my Jenkins mail from my phone.

The Droid Does ad is interesting to me in that Verizon went out of its way to poke AT&T/Apple in the eye. I think it’s safe to say that’ll put to rest the rumors of an iPhone on Verizon for 2010.

UPDATE, 10/28: Verizon says the Motorola Droid will be available starting November 6. Pricing: $200 (after a $100 mail-in rebate) for the phone, plus a voice plan at $40/month and a data plan at $30/month.

Submitted by: Dan Giancaterino, Education Services Manager
on October 19, 2009 - 9:10 am

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