Verizon paints Droid as equal to iPhone in apps

Verizon late Thursday rolled out a pair of new Motorola Droid ads that take a direct shot at the iPhone (seen below). The 30-second spots show a robot picking apps out of a giant sphere and showing their features much like Apple's own "there's an app for that" ads. The Droid's ads, however, highlight features that the iPhone can't claim, such as the ability to run third-party apps in the background.

Both of the ads fit into Verizon's ultra-masculine tone for the Droid and cover the broad range of what's available for Android. One ad covers Google Sky Map -- an app which doesn't have a direct iPhone equivalent -- while another shows a user listening to Slacker radio in the background while reading an e-book.

The new ads both reinforce Verizon's anti-iPhone ads, which have gone so far as to label the iPhone a pageant queen. Verizon has taken some care to distance the iPhone from AT&T in some of its criticism and leave the door open to a future deal, but it has nonetheless signaled that it thinks the Droid a better device for now.

By itself, the ad campaign is also one of the longest for a specific device run by Verizon. It has often advertised phones like the BlackBerry Storm or Palm Pre Plus but has traditionally given up promoting individual smartphones either past the holidays or relatively soon after launch.

By Electronista Staff