Droid TV ad pulls no punches in attacking the iPhone

The Motorola Droid smartphone that will ship in November from Verizon Wireless could well be the game-changer supporting analyst forecasts that the Android operating system will dominate those from the iPhone and the BlackBerry by 2012.

A new Droid TV ad basically rubs the iPhone's nose in a series of iPhone feature shortcomings , showing that Droid backers are willing to "go negative" as much as U.S. presidential candidates do when the stakes are high.

The Verizon-Motorola marketing underscores that the Droid uses Android 2.0, the mobile platform that is mainly Google Inc.'s creation, and that the new device will have all the resources that Google has come to represent, in marketing as well as technology prowess.

Droid, or a close version of it, was shown to a number of analysts and others at CTIA two weeks ago, but the device was then called the Tao or the Sholes .

Verizon and Motorola didn't give many details at the time, although a new Droiddoes Web site from Verizon gives some of the basics and urges visitors to register to find out more.

What was apparent to those who held the device at CTIA was that it clearly felt comfortable in the hand. The device measures about a half-inch thick, with a 3.7 inch touch-screen display, and has 16 GB of internal storage, based on statistics from MobileCrunch and analyst reports. As such, it is reportedly the thinnest slider smartphone with a QWERTY keyboard.

While those details are unconfirmed by Verizon or Motorola, the Droiddoes.com Web site and the TV ad for the campaign highlight that the Droid offers several important features, including multitasking, a replaceable battery and open development, features that the iPhone has been criticized for lacking. The TV ad tries to attack the iPhone in various ways, by saying:

• iDon't have a real keyboard
• iDon't run simultaneous apps
• iDon't take 5-megapixel pictures
• iDon't customize.
• iDon't run widgets.
• IDon't allow open development.
• iDon't take pictures in the dark.
• iDon't have interchangeable batteries.

The sarcasm of the TV ad follows by two weeks a similar ad from Verizon declaring, "There's a map for that," referring to Verizon's fast and extensive wireless coverage as compared to AT&T's, which provides wireless service for the iPhone.

Some analysts today called Verizon's TV ads "aggressive," and even "snarky" and "smarmy," but more than anything, the analysts agreed that the ads show how eager Verizon, Google and Motorola are to grab market share from the iPhone and others.

Ken Dulaney, a Gartner Inc. analyst, has noted that the Android can catapult to the number two position among smartphone operating system by 2012, ahead of the iPhone, the BlackBerry and Windows Mobile, but behind Symbian, which runs in Nokia devices. Gartner's rationale for the huge growth in Android looks at the multitude of carriers and manufacturers that will offer Android phones, but also notes the open development environment and the rich array of cloud computing applications Google is building.

For more enterprise computing news, visit Computerworld. Story copyright Computerworld, Inc.