The amount of anti-iPhone propaganda emanating from Verizon Wireless suggests the rumour mongers have all been wrong that the US carrier will finally get the device when AT&T’s exclusive agreement with Apple expires in June 2010.
Verizon’s latest jibe at the iPhone and AT&T came this weekend with a teaser commercial for its first Android phone – the Motorola Droid, launching in November.
“iDon’t have a real keyboard…run simultaneous apps… take 5-megapixel pictures…customise…run widgets…allow open development …take pictures in the dark…have interchangeable batteries,” it says.
“Everything iDon’t, Droid does,” is the punchline.
This follows a commercial where Verizon satirised Apple’s “There’s an app for that” commercial, with its “There’s a map for that” one, saying it had five times more 3G coverage than AT&T.
The iSuppli research firm predicted last month that Apple, contrary to the speculation, would extend AT&T’s exclusivity.
Francis Sideco, principal analyst, said Apple had no reason to move from wireless technology that will have more than four times the number of subscribers than those using Verizon’s technology in 2012:
“The main reason Apple is likely to stick with AT&T beyond 2010 is the relatively wide usage and growth expected for the HSPA air standard used by the carrier for 3G data. Cumulative global subscribers of HSPA wireless services, consisting of High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) and High-Speed Uplink Packet Access (HSUPA), are set to rise to 1.4 billion in 2012, up from 269.1 million in 2009. In contrast, cumulative subscribers for the EVDO standard used by Verizon will amount to 304.6 million in 2013, up from 145.2 million in 2009.”
Jokey commercials apart, the iPhone does face a serious challenge from an array of new Android devices being launched in the US in the final quarter.
T-Mobile has the Motorola Cliq and Samsung Behold II, Sprint is offering the HTC Hero and Samsung Moment and Verizon will release the Droid and an unnamed HTC model before the end of the year.
Verizon is the first to announce inclusion of the 2.0 version of Android, codenamed Eclair, although others running the 1.5 Cupcake and 1.6 Donut versions will be easily upgradeable.
The marketing ploy seems to be to emphasise superior hardware features, such as slide-out keyboards and better cameras, and the fact that Google’s Android Market now carries more than 10,000 applications, with many developers readying their programs for Android at the same time as for Apple’s App Store.
Google and Verizon made a big fuss of their link-up on Android with an announcement earlier this month. The operating system had only a 3 per cent share of the US smartphone market in July , but expect that to increase significantly with the release of many new Android phones in the coming months.
