“Everything iDon’t, Droid Does” – a history of Verizon's "Droid" brand, Part One

Droid Does origin stories.

Hello there, friends. As some of you may be aware, I’m lucky enough to have had a brand spanking new Motorola RAZR to play around with since Tuesday. I’ve been putting it through its paces, and am about to start spouting out in-depth review content from a real-world day-to-day usage context – unlike those one-day review devices other sites rush to push out impressions on, I’m taking the time to make the RAZR my daily driver, and it’s for this reason that I want to write lots of filler articles tell you where I and the phone am coming from, before I begin.

You see, I’ve not had a chance to play with one of Motorola’s high-end Android devices with their own flavour of the operating system before. Here in little old New Zealand, the most exciting Moto device on the market is the Defy+. What have Moto been up to for the past two years? Well, that’s where this article comes in: I want to talk about the history of the Droid series of devices.

A comment on our aptly-named editor ArtooDeetoo’s excellent History of Android series asking why the original Motorola Droid was omitted inspired me to research it and its ilk in a little more depth than I had previously. This was quite the worthwhile venture, as the Droid reversed Android, Motorola, and Verizon's fortunes. I have quite a lot to say about these devices, so we’ll call this the first instalment – I also want to look in-detail at several key television advertisements, as well as the full device range, not to mention a few ways to get a taste of the Droid branding on your Android phone or tablet right now. Without further ado, let’s jump into onslaught86’s A Brief History of Droids.

Introduction: What’s a Droid?

If you’re asking that, you’ve come to the right place! Chances are, however, that you already know, so I’ll keep this bit brief. The biggest mobile carrier in the USA, Verizon Wireless, has a top-tier branded range of Android smartphones called Droids. Initially made by Motorola, and debuting in 2009, the Droid brand has since extended to certain HTC and Samsung handsets as well. The campaign is very well known, even among non-techies, and ‘Droid’ has – in many circles – come to refer to Android as a whole, rather than to these specific devices.

The Droid brand is immediately defined by its large glowing red robot eye, and the ominous “DROOOOID” voice-over. It’s futuristic, it’s dangerous, it’s mechanical, it’s sharply male-orientated, and it couldn’t be further removed from the soft, neutral, ergonomic iPhone and associated marketing. Indeed - the Droid series was, at the time, positioned firmly as an iPhone competitor. Of course, Verizon has since started carrying the iPhone series itself, yet the Droids continue to thrive, having become well and truly established as an alternative flagship series of smartphones. When the original Droid device debuted, it was the first on the scene with the Android 2.0 variant of Eclair, and Verizon put its big red back into the marketing efforts. ‘Droid Does’ is quite the memorable slogan. Bus stops, television, radio, the works – Droids were, and are, everywhere.

"Droid" as a brand name for phones was coined shortly before the OG Droid's launch by Gorden Bowen of unconventional advertising agency McGarry Bowen at a time when all three major stakeholders - Verizon, Motorola, and Google - had serious concerns about the appeal of the product they had worked so hard on. It was square, violent, and almost ugly in comparison to its competitors - but that became the device's biggest strength, as the Droid mantra turned it into a slick anti-iPhone. Wikipedia's sources list the device as selling over a million units in the first two and a half months of launch, outpacing the performance of the original iPhone. I'm thinking that's pretty solid performance at a time when smartphones were technically just coming into the mainstream consumer market, and Android was at a make-or-break point after the disappointing performance of the first Android phone, the T-Mobile G1.

I, for one, fall squarely in the demographic that the Droid series is aimed at. Screeching metal, flashing lights, ominous glowing robot eyes! What self-respecting male geek would turn down a phone marketed as an alien robot that could kill you?

Significance: What does this mean for Android as a whole?

Because of the household nature of the Droid name, it has had a massive impact on the market awareness of Android as a smartphone operating system, and pioneered it as an alternative to iOS at a time when iOS was dominating the consumer segment.

The Droid series, by many accounts, saved Motorola from an untimely demise. Given Google have just bought Moto out, their future is positively exploding with potential, so I’m glad they’re still around – after all, I’ve got their brand new RAZR sitting next to me right now.

While Samsung’s mighty Galaxy S series and HTC’s Desire family are probably more significant on an international or global scale, the market and fashion influence of the USA’s most popular tech cannot be underestimated, even when the devices in question can’t be used outside of the US. Which brings us to..

Ownership: Why can’t you buy Droids in other countries?

The word ‘Droid’ is a trademark of none other than Lucasfilm, as the Droids you’re not looking for can certainly attest. Rather than being licensed by Motorola for use on their phones, it’s licensed by Verizon, meaning no other carrier can call a Droid a Droid, as it were.

Verizon has a lot of clout as a carrier, marketing itself as ‘America’s Most Reliable Network’. Given the iPhone (The iPhone of the time was the second model, the ‘iPhone 3G’) was originally exclusive to rival carrier AT&T, the availability of a good smartphone on Verizon made a splash, especially so when said smartphone was positioned as a polar opposite of Apple’s baby. Where the iPhone was rounded, the Droid was square. It had a physical keyboard, turn-by-turn navigation, multitasking, a removable battery – and an edgy campaign to establish it as an underdog. As blatantly stated in the first campaign, “Everything iDon’t, Droid Does.” Kicking ass and taking names, the Droid became the cool robot sidekick you wanted in your pocket.

Networks: Why didn’t you just get a Verizon Droid when they came out, if you like them so much?

Here we come into alien territory for many. Different markets have different dynamics and business models. In the European and Asia-Pacific markets for phones, it’s common to buy devices outright, obligation-free. Or to buy from one carrier, and just use it on another carrier who has better plans. This is possible because most of the world uses a mobile network technology called GSM, which aptly stands for Global Standard for Mobility (The 3G standard thereof is known as UMTS, but we’ll stick with ‘GSM’ as a catch-all for simplicity’s sake). GSM networks utilise SIM cards that can be swapped from device to device at will, allowing the user to switch phones instantly with little need for input from the network. In places where carriers use compatible frequencies, switching carriers can be just as easy – which makes for a much more competitive market, as I’m sure you can understand.

Enter the US of A. Here, we have four major players – Verizon Wireless, AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile. There are plenty of small regional players, as well as MVNOs (Mobile Virtual Network Operators – carriers that use another carrier’s network to provide services), but these are the important ones. And what’s important here is that none of these four have compatible devices. AT&T and T-Mobile both use GSM, but over completely different 3G frequencies, meaning that while you can use a T-Mobile phone on AT&T and vice versa, you can only get tired old 2G speeds, which is largely a waste of time. On top of this, it’s common practice for devices to be locked to their respective carriers, making this even harder.

Verizon and Sprint, on the other hand, make things even more complicated by using a completely different type of network technology. Called CDMA (Which stands for the less informative Code Division Multiple Access. The 3G standard is Ev-DO, or Evolution Data Optimised.), this older type of mobile network isn’t terribly popular the world over, yet is so established and reliable in the States that replacing it with something else would be...challenging, to say the least. CDMA is still used in Japan and China, and local readers will recall that Telecom New Zealand’s old CDMA network is still alive and kicking until June 2012. Telstra Australia lead the charge in abandoning CDMA when they shut their service down in favour of a new 3G UMTS network, just like Telecom New Zealand did with their XT network. Globally, CDMA just ain’t cutting it anymore. In the US, however, it’s understood as a tried and tested, reliable technology. You may not be able to make calls and use mobile data at the same time, but is that so bad when the alternative is dropped calls and poor reception? “Can you hear me now?” is about right. 

I won’t go into the hows and wherefores of what the differences are between CDMA and GSM, because what’s important to the end-users like you is that CDMA devices do not take SIM cards, and cannot be used on GSM networks. Generally, they can’t even be used on other CDMA networks, because the carrier’s provisioning is very tightly integrated with the hardware. This makes it a wee bit complicated when, say, Sprint and Verizon customers want to travel outside of the USA, since there’s just not that many places they can ‘roam’ (Which is when your phone gets a visitor’s pass on another carrier’s network, usually at atrociously high rates). They get around this by either giving travellers a GSM phone to use while abroad, or including both CDMA and GSM radios in single devices, allowing them to switch to the global standard while away from home. 

Verizon and Sprint have the clout necessary for major manufacturers like HTC, Samsung, and, of course, Motorola, to produce top tier devices for them. Even Apple joined in, eventually. It’s obviously cheaper for OEMs to make one device and sell it in as many markets as possible, which is why handsets like the Galaxy S II have 3G bands out the wazoo – so you can use one piece of hardware on many different carriers. As outlined above, this is the complete opposite approach to the US market.

Because you can’t use one US carrier’s device on another US carrier, they’ve got you by the short ‘n’ curlies – you absolutely have to buy another phone if you want to use another carrier’s services. As such, the carriers can afford to subsidise the right royal rear-end out of their range of phones. It’s uncommon to pay much more than US $200.00-$300.00 for a brand spanking new, just-released phone. You’ll even generally get thirty days in which you can change your mind and take it back for a refund (Less a ‘restocking fee’) or trade it out for that fantastic new phone that launched 29 days after you bought the last one. They care that much about your happiness as a customer keeping you locked into a pricey two-year contract.

With the Droid brand being exclusive to Verizon, Android fans outside of the US were pretty much screwed if they wanted one. Some of the Droid-branded devices did get non-Droid branded international variants, but those were generally undesirable and got little third-party support. Three of the later Droid range, the Droid 2 Global, Droid Pro, and Droid 3, fall into the dual CDMA/GSM radio category, so these are a little more viable for use by citizens of other nations if you must have a legitimate Verizon-branded Droid.

Conclusion: So where are we now?

It’s hard to believe the first Droid device hit the market two years ago. The tech world has been exploding with news and developments since 2009, and mobile devices have come a very long way. The original Motorola Droid was instrumental in paving the way for Android to take over the world, and we as fans of the platform owe a debt of gratitude to that little QWERTY slider with the glowing red eye. 

I want to take a moment to talk about the devices themselves, as well as look at some of the more exciting TV spots to have come out of the two years of Droid, so stay tuned for more content coming your way shortly. This is also building up to my overall assessment of the Motorola RAZR – or Droid RAZR, as the Verizon variant is branded. The Droid campaign and my own desire to have one directly influenced my decision to go for the RAZR - even though the RAZR I have is not the Droid-branded variant. This is proof of the power of a good marketing campaign, since here I am, writing an article about phones I cannot use, offered by a carrier I cannot choose, in another country across the world. Those glowing red robot eyes resonate with me

Motorola’s acquisition by Google has opened the door to many exciting possibilities – for Droid-branded devices, for non-Droid Motorola devices, and for Android as a whole.