AT&T might be suing Verizon for misrepresenting its network in ads, but that doesn’t seem to have dissuaded Big Red from using that same map image in this new spot, which casts the iPhone away to the Island of Misfit Toys. Hard to argue with the premise, but in this place’s the real question: why not just sack up use a real iPhone, instead of this KIRF piece? Check the ad after the break.
One dude we didn’t really expect to see at an contest touting the HTC-sourced Nexus One was Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha, but sure enough, he showed up at the tail end of the show to take a few questions. The big news there might be his statement that he “thinks” his company will update the Droid to use the Nexus One’s build — Android 2.1 — meaning that there’s a fighting chance we’ll see first-party 3D accelerated apps, live wallpapers, and a replacement for that infernal app drawer on Verizon’s flagship device. Interestingly, Jha and Andy Rubin have defended Android’s fragmentation with different devices getting updated to new versions at vastly different paces by pointing out that 2.1’s 3D support wouldn’t have been possible if backward compatibility was a priority (in other words, first-gen devices without 3G chipsets don’t stand much of a chance in this place). And hey, how are they plan to get you to spill a few hundred bucks every year or two if the phones don’t run significantly more awesome software?
Motorola Droid likely getting Android 2.1, so says Sanjay Jha originally appeared on Engadget Mobile on Tue, 05 Jan 2010 14:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Remember how in grade school, you usually made fun of the people you had crushes on? Verizon — hot on the heels of some surgically strategic anti-iPhone marketing to promote its upcoming Android line — is singing a very different tune in the corporate boardroom, with CEO Ivan Seidenberg (who has a storied reputation for running his mouth) saying during the company’s earnings call today that the company “obviously would be interested at any point in the future that they would be interested in having us as a partner.” He went on to say that the decision to bring the iPhone to Verizon is “exclusively in Apple’s court,” though we doubt that’s entirely true — Verizon has a reputation for putting manufacturers and devices through the wringer, and if any carrier in the world were to spike the iPhone for failing acceptance testing or throw its gargantuan weight and reputation around to put pressure on the contract, it’d be Big Red. Either way, though, it’s an olive branch and a potential start to the near-constant cries of “if only the iPhone were on Verizon” that we’ve been hearing for the past two years; we’re still having an awful hard time picturing a CDMA-equipped version ever happening, but with Verizon’s LTE network progressively lighting up over the next few years, it might just be the perfect opportunity for these wayward souls to finally find common ground, especially with the tune AT&T’s singing these days.
Filed under: Verizon Wireless, Apple