On October 6, 2009, Motorola released its so-called iPhone killer, the Motorola Droid. I know what many of you might be thinking. Droid is just another one of those iPhone copies that will end up being shelved away like the original Android. Well, after looking at the phone and the initial reviews, many are actually thinking this may just be the phone that could be comparable to the iPhone.

What first compelled me to look into the Droid was the absolutely brilliant advertisements. The iDon’t ad campaign pits the Android-based Droid head-to-head against the formidable iPhone. As a business oriented person, the ads captivated me and made me want to research more about the phone. Other companies should learn from this type of ads. Any entrepreneur should learn from Motorola and Verizon’s strategy: Pin your product against a major opponent and pinpoint its faults against your product’s benefits. Brilliant.


On paper, the Droid is more than impressive. It boasts a fast processor, a large display with almost double the resolution of the iPhone, and a slide-out QWERTY keyboard. It packs a 5 megapixel camera with flash and zoom, and a GPS into a slick, attractive package that is certainly comparable to the iPhone in terms of aesthetics.

Droid is built on Google’s open source Android mobile operating system. Droid is also the first device that will be available with the newest version–Android 2.0 (also referred to as ‘Eclair’). The Android operating system is the secret weapon of the Droid, but the Android Market may be the Droid’s Achilles heel. No one can deny Apple’s success with the iPhone and its counterpart, the App Store. Boasting over 100,000 applications, the App Store is one of the biggest successes ever created. Though the Apple App Store has been a source of controversy for Apple, but it is also a huge source of revenue and it is one of the many benefits of being an iPhone (or iPod Touch) user. The Apple App Store has more than 100,000 apps, while the Android Market has about ten percent of that.

Google made substantial improvements to Android Market with the SDK 1.6 (a.k.a. ‘Donut’) release of Android a few months back. Donut added the ability for developers to include screenshots and descriptions for their applications, and changed the Android Market so users can browse by most recent addition or featured apps, the top paid apps, and the top free apps.

The Android invasion has begun and the Android operating system is quickly capturing smart phone market share. It remains to be seen if the Droid, or any other Android-based device, can actually be an iPhone killer, but one thing that will be critical to the success of Android-based smart phones is a robust and diverse collection of apps in Android Market.

The Droid is an excellent smartphone with many (if not all) of the features that a modern user would expect, and if you’re a Verizon customer, there probably isn’t a more action packed device on the network. That’s not to say the device doesn’t have its faults; the camera is said to be unpleasant to use, the application selection feels thin in both quantity and quality (despite the claim of 10,000 options), and the phone has bits of basic, non-intuitive functionality that might chafe on some users after a while. But even still, it’s hard not to recommend the Droid to potential buyers eager to do more with their devices. It’s easily the best Android phone to date, and when you couple the revamped OS, Verizon’s killer network, a real keyboard, and an industrial design straight from a gadget enthusiast’s fever-dream, it makes for a powerful concoction. Ultimately, the Droid won’t usurp the iPhone from the public’s collective mindshare or convince casual users that they must switch to Android.