Now that the Droid has launched we all want to know how many have sold. Well, I want to know anyway, and I’m guessing a few of you probably do as well. If you take Bloomberg’s word, opening weekend showed 110,000 units sold. Developer uLocate, which develops the GPS app “Where” has confirmed those numbers and done one better.

According to uLocate, the Where app typically gets installed on 10% of new Android devices in the first month, jumping to a 25% penetration rate thereafter. The same was true for the Droid, boasting 11,000 downloads during opening weekend. Since last weekend that number is up to 25,000, meaning we’re looking at 250,000 Droid sales in the first week. Considering the Palm Pre only sold 300,000 in its first month, that number’s looking pretty good. Doesn’t hurt that you can get the Droid on Verizon who, despite recent bad press concerning fees, is the most desirable network in the country (though T-Mobile is probably a close second with its new plans).

Hopefully it’s onward and upward for the Droid. I’m not personally a fan, but success of the handset means good things for Android, and that’s something I can get behind.

Source: Boy Genius Report

I was pretty excited to go out and get my hands on a Droid yesterday. I made my way out to a local Verizon store, where a new owner was kind enough to let me play around with the phone and make a few calls. I have to say, I was pretty impressed with the device. The screen looks incredible and the whole thing operates pretty quickly. Call quality was better than my iPhone, but what isn’t. What I can’t understand, though, is why Motorola added the physical keyboard. It’s not that a hardware keyboard is a bad idea, but that keyboard is the bad idea.

Seriously, that keyboard is terrible. The keys are too close together and so difficult to push that I found myself hitting multiple keys at once pretty often. The top row is too close to the slider, making it difficult to get my thumbs in there to push. The keyboard seems even more out of place when you use the virtual keyboard. I didn’t like it as well as the iPhone, probably because of the lack of multi-touch support, but it’s the best I’ve used outside an Apple product.

The obvious conclusion is that it’s meant to be a differentiator from the iPhone. Unfortunately, it detracts from the quality of the phone, and makes it a lot thicker than is necessary. I think part of the problem is that no one wants to make anything so close to the iPhone that an exec says, “Well why wouldn’t they just buy an iPhone,” and that’s a terrible strategy. The iPhone is great, but it can be improved upon, and there are people who just want something a little different. So give them Android, but leave the pointless differentiators on the design table.

My only other problem with the phone is the Android Market. It’s still too barren to make me seriously consider a switch, even if it would mean Google Voice and Google Navigation.

If you take a look at today’s most popular devices it’s easy to see the shift away from specialized gadgets to universal tools. The Nook from Barnes and Noble is the not-so-missing link between ereaders and tablets, camcorders are shooting still pictures and vice versa, and of course there are our cell phones, which are screaming toward becoming the all-in-one device of the future. Martin Cooper, grandfather of cell phones, thinks that’s a bad thing.

The 80 year-old has voiced his ‘simple is better’ opinion about the iPhone in the past, and he’s said it again to a privacy conference in Madrid this week. “Whenever you create a universal device that does all things for all people, it does not do any things well.” Cooper’s really put me in a pickle here. Obviously the guy has made very significant contributions to the world’s technological progression, but it seems he’s lost his gift for foresight.

To say that a device that does all things cannot do any one thing well is just patently false. Take a look at computers, or do we classify all that they do as computing? Take a closer look at the iPhone. Sure, the phone part of it sucks – maybe even blows – but the internet browsing is pretty great (just needs flash to get my super awesome stamp of approval) and the media features are second to none. And the device is really still in its infancy. Compare where cellphones are today to where they were when Cooper made the first cellular call in 1973. Now give the technology another 35 years and imagine where things will stand.

To be fair, Cooper could be saying that universal devices can never rival dedicated devices – think DSLR versus a cell phone camera – and there he may be right, at least in some cases. But is that really what we’re after? That sort of quality is just overkill for the average user, and splits from one of the features that makes combined devices so popular – convenience. Cell phone cameras can easily match point and shoot quality without requiring you to carry another device, and that’s what makes them so great.

Whatever Cooper meant, the future he imagines is likely very different than the future we’re likely to see. “Our future I think is a number of specialist devices that focus on one thing that will improve our lives,” he said. And I think you’re crazy.

It looks like Verizon will be launching more than one “Droid” branded phone on November 6th. According to a leaked document picked up at Engadget, the HTC Eris will hit stores the same day as Motorola’s Droid at $199 with a $100 mail-in rebate.

The Eris is basically a rebranded HTC Hero, though in this case running Android 1.5 with the popular Sense UI. It’s a sharp looking phone, but the processor leaves a bit to be desired. Also, no word on whether Verizon will be pushing Android 2.0 onto this thing, so you could be missing out on Google’s free navigation app. Motorola’s Droid, on the other hand, gives you a physical keyboard, much faster processor, and guaranteed Android 2.0.

For the price, though, it’s hard to go wrong. The regular HTC Hero costs $180.

Source: Engadget

If you’re going to release a great device, a gadget of any kind really, don’t bog the thing down with rebates. It just gives me reason to pause before selling anything I can find just to get my hands on it. I wasn’t so surprised to see Palm try the rebate thing with the Pre. The company really needed money. But Motorola? I figured they’d be a little better off. Thankfully, Best Buy’s decided to just sell the thing for $199.99 outright with a contract.

This sort of thing takes a lot of the burden off the wireless stores, which tend to be small and understaffed, especially as you get more rural. It’s also just nice to be able to walk in and pay the $200 without worrying about rebates. In case you forgot, the Droid launches on November 6th.