Verizon’s Android vs. the iPhone

“Move over Apple,” said Olga Kharif in BusinessWeek. No. 1 U.S. carrier Verizon Wireless is partnering with Google to offer smart phones running the open-source Android mobile OS, and that spells trouble for the iPhone, as well as other smart phones. With Verizon in its corner, Android will now attract other carriers and handset makers, outshine BlackBerrys in Verizon stores, and give Verizon an excuse to shun the iPhone when AT&T’s exclusive deal ends.

It won’t matter if Verizon gets the iPhone, said Douglas Rushkoff in The Daily Beast. Its Android deal ends Apple’s “dominance” of the smart phone market. Now that Android has its missing link—a reliable network (watch Verizon mock AT&T and Apple)—it will win over “enterprise and corporate customers who purchase a few thousand contracts at a time” and individuals drawn to Google’s “potential killer apps, such as Google Voice,” which Apple rejected.

Ignore the “Google-loving apologist geeks,” said Grant Robertson in Download Squad. Verizon is going to blow this, precisely because they’re not touching the Android apps. “The Android Market is terrible. It’s worse than terrible, it’s horrible.” In contrast, Apple’s App Store is beautiful, user-friendly, and curated—yes, Apple’s “App Store approval mafia” is annoying, but it beats the Android Market’s dangerous “total anarchist free-for-all.”

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Both sides have a point, said Sam Diaz in ZDNet. I’m “one of the Apple faithful” who is unwilling to abandon Verizon’s better coverage for an iPhone with AT&T’s “hit or miss” service. But I also like the Android user experience—which is “second only to the iPhone.” So now “I’m torn,” but in a good way, “because I suddenly feel like I have options. Real options.”