Friday Evening Links > Verizon's Buzz for Motorola's Droid Fizzles at Day's End

Verizon's Buzz for Motorola's Droid Fizzles at Day's End

Droid joins a long line of "iPhone killers" that weren't.

people keep forgetting how much ground android has to make up. iphone has been around for over 2 years now. i couldn't find how many os updates they have released. But give android time it will/should mature just as much as iPhone.
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reply to SHABAZZ
i blame verizon's lame marketing department for making people think droid was going to kill iphone. there is no way verizon will have the phone to kill iphone. considering that all their phones only work with verizon. amirite?
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reply to FBGuy

well unlike iphone, the customer can actually contribute to the development of the OS. therefore making the customer not have the right to complain about it.
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reply to SHABAZZ
I think the problem was the marketing. I walked into a VzW store on D-Day, and played with it, then stood back and listened/watched as others took to it.

Most of them had never heard of the Droid. They don't know what Android is, what it's capable of, that Google Maps will call out navigation to you for free, that the web browser's fast...

Instead, I heard comments like, "Ohh it's a touch. I dunno, it feels too light," and "I don't like the keypad thing." I'm not trying to sound above these people, but I think the marketeers failed to reach non-techy middle America, the people who ask other people what's wrong with their computers.
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"No matter how hard you push and no matter what the priority, you can't increase the speed of light."

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reply to Z80

said by Z80:

said by FBGuy:

therefore making the customer not have the right to complain about it.

Sure, 'cause every customer just happens to be a developer.

reply to amigo_boy
agreed

reply to FBGuy
And you could be a developer for the iPhone too. But most consumers aren't going to be either.

reply to Z80

reply to Z80
No slider is going to beat the iPhone.

All of the droid ads were aimed at building hype, nothing substantive. The pre ads have that freaky cultish makeup commercial looking wacko... Only the iPhone ads show what the device its advertising actually does.

In any case, no amount of marketing is to blame for the Droid's laughable launch. It just isn't that good of a phone.

- A
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LETS GO METS!

reply to Romney2012
Or they can just take market share from each other as one android phone battles for market share with another android phone which is what happens to Windows Mobile.

Google has no "marketing clout" in the handset arena because their name isn't synonymous with hardware and unlike the iPhone was for Apple or Up was for Pixar, the Droid or anything *droid isn't the "next sure fire hit" for Google. No one is looking for Google to make a phone (phone OS). There is no anticipation. They are Suzuki building their first car. It doesn't matter how respected they are in the browser space it doesn't translate to handsets and Microsoft is an example of this. No one cares.

Google, like Microsoft, must rely on handset makers to make compelling hardware, seamlessly integrate the software and not charge an arm and a leg for it. And then they must rely on the handset makers to aggressively market their Android handsets. Motorola isn't up to spending the money Apple and RIM spend on marketing and after this first wave of iDonts (which did nothing to build hype) Motorola marketing will go the way of Pre marketing and Google will be left with no one pushing the OS once again...until the next 2 week marketing blitz by the next "iPhone Killer" handset maker comes out.

Meanwhile hardly a day goes by that you don't see an iPhone and Crackberry commercial and/or crap loads of Apple product placement. No one markets hardware better or more aggressively than Apple.

Lastly you have The Cult willing to buy anything they sell and media more than willing to hype it as if Teh Steve is releasing The Holy Grail.

All of this makes seriously eroding iPhone market share impossible unless Apple turns into a terrorist group and uses the iPhone to blow up day care centers.

Android is Linux on the desktop, possibly technically superior but no one cares.

reply to FastiBook

reply to Z80
most consumers can't afford the SDK that is out for iphone, unlike the android sdk which is free.
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The iPhone SDK is free as well so people can play around building an simulating apps. The $99 dev connection subscription is required to install the app on a real device and sell the app in iTS where you get 70% of the revenue. But learning Objective-C is by FAR the bigger hurdle than the hundred bucks.

Consumers of these products aren't going to learn Cocoa to write their own code whether the Dev Connection is free or not. XCode comes with EVERY copy of OS X and lite versions of MS Visual Studio environments are free too but we don't see "consumers" writing their own stuff. They buy apps. "Consumers" don't give two squirts of piss about developer tools, especially for their mobile phone.

reply to FBGuy

Verizon takes a shot at AT&T & iPhone in new ads