November 11, 2009, 11:57 AM — Hey, that pesky Droid phone came out this past weekend! You know, the one that was going to finally kill the iPhone, befitting its "iPhone killer" status? So, how'd it do? Well, depending on who you ask, sales were good, or maybe boring! Sure, 200,000 in the opening weekend is a lot, but it doesn't compare with the million 3GSes Apple moved immediately upon the release of that phone, does it?
David Pogue probably has it right when he compares the release of Droid to that of the Pre. These are not numbers to be ashamed of! But the iPhone has built-in branding going back years, to the release of the iPod, whereas very few people outside of tech circles even know what Android is.
On that last point, I think it's important to realize that Android "killing" the iPhone, in the sense of displacing it from the top of the smartphone heap, is something that will difficult for most people to notice even if it does happen. Check out the comparison of three Android phones in this AppleInsider piece. If you didn't already know, would you have pegged them as running the same operating system? Would it be meaningful to say that "Android" is winning if most people using the OS don't realize that they're using it? It strikes me that it will be differing handset manufacturers succeeding or failing with Android, not the OS itself.
Follow Josh on Google+
