Quest for the Droid Crowds: Not So Epic 18 comments
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Today is Droid day — an event that I, like many tech bloggers, have been looking forward to for quite some time. Unlike some people, I wasn’t graced with a test Droid last week, so I was forced to go out and get one the old fashioned way: by getting to the store as early as possible, before the precious devices sold out. And while I was concerned about falling prey to a supply shortage, a part of me still hoped there would be many others like me, helping justify my early morning rise. These are my notes as I searched for the unexpectedly elusive Verizon Droid line.
5:30 AM. I woke up this morning to the soothing chimes of my over-priced alarm clock, took a look at the ungodly hour, and immediately sank back into my pillow. It wasn’t until my second alarm (strategically positioned far out of arm’s reach) kicked in that I remembered the task at hand: Droid day.
Ah yes, the phone that seemingly came out of nowhere — at least to those who haven’t had their ear to the ground on Android phone news, which until now has largely been a steady stream of mediocracy, fueled by underpowered CPUs and generic UIs. But Droid has something special. Mostly, it’s the phone’s heavy duty processor, but there’s also its brilliant screen, much-improved operating system, and the fact that it runs on a network that doesn’t leave people screaming profanities (at least until they get their monthly bill).
So I embarked this morning to the Palo Alto Verizon store, hoping to use a Qik live stream to capture the festive line of Droid fans sure to be present. After all, Verizon customers have plenty to celebrate — though they’re on the nation’s best network, they’ve long been burdened with an underwhelming selection of phones. This is the first time they’ve had a chance to pick up a device that’s a viable alternative to the iPhone. And with Verizon’s marketing onslaught over the last few weeks, not to mention the generally very positive reviews, I expected the turnout to be good. Not Apple good mind you — no marketing push can match Steve Jobs’ mystical mind control over a rabid fanbase of millions. But this was the heart of Silicon Valley, where gadget geeks flourish.
Alas, it seems that my expectations were unwarranted. I walked up to the Verizon store no later than 6:20 AM, forty minutes before the 7:00 AM opening time (three hours earlier than usual in light of the big day). But no sooner had I arrived than I began to question my still-groggy mental state. The Verizon sign was directly above my head. There were five or six employees buzzing around the well-lit store, two of whom were decked out in bizarre Droid-branded outfits, complete with black leather vests. But the street could not have been more empty.
The door cracked open. One of the employees, perhaps concerned by my confused expression or excited that someone had actually shown up, had come to talk to me. Yes, I was in the right place. Yes, they were due to open in a little more than half an hour. And yes, they too had expected more than one person to be standing in front of the store at this point. The door closed again.
A few minutes later I was joined by two new Droid fans. Unfortunately, my excitement over my new friends was rather shortlived — the newcomers turned down my offer of free TechCrunch T-shirts, and informed me that they weren’t actually waiting in line, but had come to witness it for themselves too. As it turned out, they were members of the Android team, who were also apparently let down by the sad turn out. But, as they quickly pointed out, the line was not actually as empty as it seemed! For I had neglected to take into account the three cars parked at the side of the road, each of which was occupied by one future Droid customer. And we were also joined by one other person, who was officially the first person in line, a mere 30 minutes before the store opened. You can relive this moment in the poorly shot video below.
Over the course of the next half hour we were joined by perhaps four more people. I was cheered up by the fact that many of them accepted my offers of free TechCrunch T-shirts (the Android team members eventually caved and asked for some too). But the atmosphere was oddly solemn as we tried to brainstorm where everyone else could possibly be. We eventually arrived at the conclusion that people may have decided to head to the nearby Best Buy, which actually offers a better deal because they take care of the Droid’s $100 mail-in rebate for you (Verizon makes you go through rebate hell). It was time to look elsewhere for a line. You can see our heartfelt goodbyes in the video below.
Thus, I set out on part two of my journey, which was even more boring than part one. I’ll spare you the details, but suffice to say, there wasn’t a single person in front of the Best Buy. Not even an Android team member. My quest was a failure. There are lines being reported in places — dozens of them — across the country, and I was unable to find one.
All of this would bother me more, were it not for the fact that I now have a Droid sitting on my desk. Over the course of the last few hours, I’ve gradually come to the conclusion that this thing rocks, plain and simple. I’ll always have a soft spot for the iPhone, but for this generation of smart phones, at least, I’ve made my choice.
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A fun read.
This may turn out to be a worse launch than the Palm Pre.
I enjoyed the article. thanks.
Once you have the results of the experiment, imagine that the person on the other end was 1) your spouse/significant other/partner; 2) your boss; 3) your most important client; 4) your mother. Suppose 1) your spousigothpartner wanted the address of a restaurant where you will meet at lunch--a restaurant you've never been to; 2) your boss wanted some data from a report that you have on the company's network, but not on the Droid; 3) your client wanted information on a product or service, information that's on the company's private web site, but not on the Droid; 4) your mother said that she had just emailed you a photo of your new nephew and wanted to know if you think he's as adorable as she does--she's waiting in her usual impatient way and wants an answer right now.
And now you'll gradually come to the conclusion that Motorola's latest and greatest sucks, plain and simple:
- uncomfortable physical design (heavy, hard-edged)
- lousy physical keyboard (no auto-correction, poor tactile qualities)
- terrible camera (great specs but lousy interface and results; no in-device editing)
- slow browser
- no multi-touch for smooth zooming, etc.
- application memory limited to a total of 256 MB--goodbye to significant "multi-tasking" and games
- don't try to do anything else on the device while you're using its phone--THAT "multi-tasking" is not supported!
- you'll pay extra for Exchange support
- a total of just 3 apps panels (vs. 11 for the iPhone)
...and a relatively miniscule number of apps and no third-party accessories offerings. Sheesh...
But then it was all about price and how "wild west" it was running DOS from tiny MicroSoft.
Lets try that:
"DROID from tiny Motorola..."
Hey, could work. Same principle.
Back then, IBM (GOOG), a well known and respected company did DOS (Android) before selling (free license) it to MSFT (MOT). This is analogous to today but all similarities end beyond this point.
Back then, DOS (Android) was dirt cheap and hardware could be home-built. Today, Android is free but Droid is not cheap and Droid hardware cannot be home-built. Average consumer cannot build a "Home Droid" and install Android to run for peanuts. Commercial Droid hardware requires a plan and the associated positives and negatives. Huge difference!
Back then, consumers knew little about personal computing (cell phone). Today, a whole generation can scarcely live without personal mobile computing devices (iPhone, Droids, Pre, Storms, etc). People have the means and the knowledge to pick and choose.
Back then, Apple was a local kid around the block. Today, Apple is an international corporation. Just look at the French Apple Store launch today. The number of people in line is a surprise!
www.youtube.com/watch?...
Back then, IBM (GOOG) had its tentacles in nearly all corporations and mid to larger businesses. DOS (Android), even after MSFT (MOT) took over, already had a ready-made and the *only* large customer base (VZN subscribers). Today, GOOG is not a business service provider, it has no lock on buyers. Apple has $30+ Billion in cash, beats the entire recession with continuously increasing sales and profit margins, and equals GOOG in engineering capabilities. MOT is a late-comer not known for its product strategy and has no locked-in buyers. VZN does not have a monopoly on cell phone subscribers. ATT also can boast 80 million subscribers and most importantly, iPhone is sold worldwide.
If you carefully parse the historical facts, it is easy to see the two events are totally different. If you only look at the surface, then it is easy to claim all sorts of "similarities".
On Nov 07 02:23 PM tripleblack wrote:
> LOL, reminds me of the early PC vs Mac days...
>
> But then it was all about price and how "wild west" it was running
> DOS from tiny MicroSoft.
>
> Lets try that:
>
> "DROID from tiny Motorola..."
>
> Hey, could work. Same principle.
DOS was a simple operating system then. I could slap together a box using parts bought from a Mom and Pop on Castro in Mtn. View, install DOS and off I go. Applications all learned to run on DOS, it was easy for me to code an application in BASIC for my own use. That application can be traded to others or sold to run on other DOS machines. That is not happening today for an average consumer using Android devices. For a developer however, there are some interesting similarities.
iPhone OS is stable and tested. It is powerful underneath. As a developer, just like an earlier DOS developer, I can code to one OS that reaches out to 30+ million users and growing. If just 2% of those buy my product, that is 600K buyers.
In contrast, coding for MOT Droid, HTC, LG, and whoever else wants in, is akin to writing code to run on AIX, HP-UX, Linux, System 7, OS/X, Windows, Chrome! I have to adapt my work to run on all platforms and their many versions. The investment in hardware and software configuration issues will be huge. Unless millions are rolling in, I will just stick to the one OS that makes me the most money with the least demand on my resources and that would be iPhone OS for now.
Just like long ago when DOS developers simply developed for DOS because it was guaranteed a captive buyer population. If anyone wants to look for meaningful resemblance of present and past events, this is it.