Why Verizon and the Droid were pivotal for Android

Earlier this week, we updated our gigantic visual history of Android to include details of every release of the operating system's 10-year history. I 've also made the case that Android is now the world' s most dominant operating system and that Google is mainly interested in buying and selling Microsoft.

Both of these stories are valuable, but they leave one question open: how did Android become so dominant? Like any big trend with a multitude of causes, there's no one answer to that question. But in this week's Processor, I wanted to examine one of those causes.

Verizon.

By arguing that Verizon is one of the reasons that Android is now huge, I want to be sure that it is a sufficient (or perhaps even necessary) condition for Android's success. Rather, the carrier ended up acting like a kingmaker.

Back in 2009, smartphone competition looked very different than it does today. The iPhone had shaken up the entire industry, but in the US, it was still exclusive to AT & T. Verizon – which had turned down the luck at that exclusivity – was casting for some kind of consolation-prize phone for its customers. There was a lot of talk about the "iPhone killer" that seems ridiculous now, but it was not quite so ridiculous then.

And though this is a story about the US side of the smartphone battle, I think it's fair to say that it was ground zero for it in 2009. It's absolutely to make it easier to say that the people of the United States

In addition to Android and the iPhone, there was competition from Symbian, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, and whatever was still left of Palm OS. Each of those platforms has had its advantages and disadvantages, but those last ones have been built on old and rickety foundations.

Verizon learned that the BlackBerry Storm in 2008, which had the "innovation" of making the entire screen a physical button, so you had to literally click down on the screen to type. By 2009, Verizon needed to try something else.

There were two options on the table. One was the Palm Pre Plus, the second iteration of the webOS phone that fixes some of the problems of the original. As we reported back in 2012, Verizon had a big order and promised a big marketing blitz for the Pre Plus.

I can not really say how much Verizon actually thought it could be the "iPhone killer," or if Verizon was simply using it for its other big bet. That big bet, of course, was Google, Android, and the Motorola Droid.

You probably know what happened next. Verizon pushed all its chips behind the Motorola Droid – 100 million of them, to be precise, which was also the dollar amount of the marketing campaign behind the Droid. That money came in addition to whatever it cost to license the word "droid" from George Lucas.

The ads from that campaign were completely unavoidable in the run-up to and from the Motorola Droid. It was so huge that it set Verizon's Droid up as an alternative iPhone. But it did more than that: it was Android as the de facto "other" smartphone to the iPhone.

It does not hurt that the Droid was a good phone, better in several ways than the Palm Pre Plus. But, again, big trends have multiple causes, and just making the best phone is not enough. It also does not hurt that it was the support of Google, which was so much in its development that it was heard by Nexus phone. Palm was left behind with much less marketing support. And to be honest, it never really recovered after that.

Anyway, I can not believe that it was incredibly sexist. Kara Swisher, as usual, put it in the best of her article from 2009: "Is the New Anti Droid Ad Anti-Women and Anti-Gay or Just Plain Idiotic? Actually, All Three! "

Yup. I mean, just look at this:

Verizon's misogynistic ad campaign caused a lot of toxicity in the discourse around smartphones. It not only encourages people to make their own smartphone, but it is a matter of their personal identity. Google's more recent "Be together, not the same" campaign was a nice counter to that trend. But in many ways, the damage to the culture.

I do not want to mourn the world that could have come to pass – even though I think the market was more vibrant when there were more viable competitors out there. I just want to point out that a thing is not easy. Especially in the US, phones do not just succeed or fail based on their own merits. There are always bigger forces with their own motivations putting their fingers on the scales.

Verizon and the Droid did not make Android what it is today, but it's also true that Android would not be what it is today.