After enduring a string of disses against its iPhone, Apple joined the month-long battle between Droid carrier, Verizon and iPhone carrier, AT&T this week — releasing two advertisements highlighting AT&T’s “simultaneous voice and data connection” capabilities, a feature Verizon’s network fails to offer. Is it wise for Apple to step in the ring?

Absolutely — AT&T needs the help: After AT&T dropped the ball by responding to Verizon’s “There’s a map for that” attack with their “lame” and “childish” Luke Wilson ad, says Jared Newman in PCWorld.com, Apple has wisely moved the debate in a “different direction.” By dramatizing AT&T’s “simultaneous voice and data” advantage, Apple gives customers “real-world examples” of why the iPhone carrier is superior.

“Apple iPhone Ad Succeeds where AT&T Fails”

These new Apple ads miss the mark: Apple’s new spots fail to address AT&T customers main concerns such as dropped calls and poor 3G coverage, argues Derrell Etherington on The Apple Blog. To defeat the “clever work coming out of Verizon’s camp” the two companies are going to have to “get their acts together.” Here’s a quick tip: “A little Hodgman goes a long way.”

“New iPhone Ads from Apple Jab at Verizon”

This is just the beginning of the war: Apple had no choice but to join the fight, says Chris Matyszczyk on CNET.com, especially after Verizon “decided it would be fun” to explicitly attack the iPhone. Apple “doesn’t mention the Droid or Verizon by name” so far, but get ready: Before this bout comes to a close, we’ll inevitably see “more [explicit] accusations, more bickering, and more attempted one-upmanship.”

Available on Verizon’s 3G wireless network, the Droid is the first smartphone to run on Google’s 2.0 Android software.

I’ve been testing the Droid ($199) for a little more than a week and here are my impressions.

The great

Turn-by-turn GPS: The Droid offers the most powerful and seamless GPS system on any smartphone. The handset easily replaces stand-alone GPS systems which can cost around $150.

Web browsing: Using the Web on the Droid is the best experience I’ve had on a smartphone. Pages load very fast — much faster than on Apple’s iPhone.

Verizon’s network: In my testing on the Droid, I didn’t drop a call once — something that’s a daily occurrence for me on AT&T.

Google integration: Set-up on the Droid took minutes. Logging in with my Google account, all of my contacts were sent to the phone and I was ready to go. The Gmail integration was super clean as well. It’s the most intuitive, full-featured e-mail solution I’ve seen on a smartphone.

The good

The Android Market: Comparisons to Apple’s more than 100,000 apps are inevitable here. The Android Market has a little more than 16,000, but that number is growing. With fewer selections in each app I was looking for (AIM client, note-taking utility, etc.) the app that had risen to the top was rarely as polished as apps I’ve used on the iPhone. However, the marquee apps (Facebook, Twitter clients, news apps, etc.) all work just fine.

Battery life: In my testing, the Droid’s battery lasted just as long as the iPhone’s, but be careful you don’t have too many applications running the background. Battery technology has always lagged other technological innovations. As with any smartphone, it is important to always have a charger nearby.

The bad

The flip-out, physical keyboard: The good news here is that the touch-screen keyboard is good enough that you won’t ever need to use the physical counterpart. It’s a feature that consumers still demand as a matter of principle, but in reality the flat and tiny physical keys are very clunky to use.

Music and video: Using the Droid as a media player is clunky at best. Without a dedicated desktop application to sync and organize music, you’re left to drag and drop files into folders on the player yourself using your computer.

Visual voicemail: It’s a great feature, but it doesn’t come standard. Customers can download the visual voicemail app or free, but unlocking the feature costs $2.99 more a month.

Overall grade: B

While the Droid may not be the much-hyped “iPhone killer” that some claim, it is a compelling entry to the market. And with features like native GPS navigation and Verizon’s powerful wireless network, it is sure to attract many customers looking for a phone that can — almost — do it all.

Contact MARK W. SMITH: msmith@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter: @markdubya or follow a feed of blog updates at @browserblog.

More importantly, does it even need to? Let’s have a little look.

The Droid had a comparatively limited release:

The figure of 250,000 units isn’t gospel, but it’s a very decent estimate. According to the same stats from Flurry, it’s over 7 times less devices than iPhone sold during it’s opening week. Droid would need to maintain those opening week sales over an extended period before it comes close to the iPhone.

But Droid has only been released in one country. It remains to be seen how successful it is overseas (I for one would queue to buy one if they release it in Ireland).

Not only that, but it’s relatively late to market. iPhone will never lose the status it gained from being the first proper smartphone as we understand them today. When the iPhone launched there simply wasn’t anything else like it in anybodies pocket. And that is something Droid can never compete with.

The Droid is part of a bigger movement:

If you read reportage of the Droid, you’ll notice something interesting. In a lot of cases, the device isn’t being reported on by it’s own mertis, but rather as a representation of Android as a whole. Droid is now the poster boy for Android, and it’s sales are being regarded as a volley in the Android vs. iPhone war. The question is whether it matters if Droid sales plummet after week one, as long as it successfully pushes Android as a platform? I would say damn straight it does. Once the operator gets its cut, Apple pulls in 100% of the profit from iPhone – which gives it incredible financial leverage for marketing. The same can’t be said of Android. In the case of Droid the profits are going mostly to Motorola and Verizon. But if another Android device does well, those profits are going to drop. Which brings us to the next point…

The Droid has bigger fish to fry than the iPhone:

Some of the biggest competition Droid has to face is from other Android devices. The HTC Hero was the big Android on campus until Droid came along with it’s slick ad campaigns and blew everyone out of the water. And Droid will suffer the same fate. At least when an old iPhone model is made redundant, all the upgrades are still buying devices straight from Apple.

Another problem with this is application consistency. As a friend of mine said to me in an email today, “it’s still really hard to make a consistent user experience with apps on android, because you can’t guarantee any features.” Different Android devices will have different technical specifications and capabilities. So you’ll have developers that have to develop multiple versions of the same app for one operating system, and given the number of Androids we’re looking at over the next one to two years, that could be a lot. Or you’ll be looking at great apps that are only developed for one model of Android – which is the kind of thing that really annoys consumer.

What we think?

I think it’s no secret that I’m a big fan of Android. But I simply can’t claim I’m confident that it will ever really provide huge competition for iPhone. I foresee Android remaining a profitable force in the mobile marketplace for a long time… but one of the major problems for that market is fragmentation. The mobile industry is still running in a hundred different directions at once, and in many ways Android is going to be further fragmenting it’s own little corner of that market. The ability of Android to adapt to any niche, and release a device to fit any segment of the mobile buyer demographic is simultaneously a huge advantage and a huge disadvantage.