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Comment by phreeza | Hacker News Reader

Why is this called Droid Incredible? Shouldn't it be HTC Incredible? Seems to be some kind of Engadget inside joke, but I find it misleading.

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Droid is a Lucasfilm brand licensed by Verizon. Verizon uses that brand on its top of the line Android mobiles: Droid Eris (HTC Hero), Droid/Motorola Droid (Motorola Milestone) and Droid Incredible (HTC Incredible).

This means the "Droid" name is solely for the US under verizon, and those phones are called something else out of the US or when released unlocked or by Sprint.

And yes, it's incredibly misleading (and annoying as the Droid and the Droid Incredible have completely different UIs for instance as the Incredible uses HTC's Sense UI whereas the Droid ran a crippled stock Android system)

It's the "Droid Incredible by HTC", not to be confused with the "Motorola Droid"

I thought "Droid" was one of the US carriers brands. I'd guess they're selling, and probably renaming, phones from various manufacturers to make them seem more coherent.

Motorola makes a phone called the Droid. However, they don't own the name Droid, Lucasfilm does (Motorola licensed it.)

If you look at pages for the Droid Incredible, you'll see they also licensed the name: 'DROID is a trademark of Lucasfilm Ltd. and its related companies. Used under license.'

My guess is that Motorola didn't get any sort of exclusivity from Lucasfilm, so other companies are free to call their phones Droid as well if they pay Lucasfilm for a license - and piggyback on Motorola's marketing spend.

Wikipedia says that the phone is called the Motorola Milestone in Europe, but called the Motorola Droid in the US because Verizon, who have exclusive US distribution rights on the phone, has licensed the name from Lucasfilm.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_droid

It also says that the HTC/Droid Incredible is on Verizon too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droid_Incredible

And the HTC Hero on Verzion is called the Droid Eris

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTC_Droid_Eris

Aha that makes sense, so it is a carrier branding.

Wow thats confusing... Seems like a big blunder by Motorola to me, they must be kicking themselves. Imagine HTC comes out with the Droid 2, heh.

> Imagine HTC comes out with the Droid 2, heh.

Which is exactly what happened: the Droid 2 is the Droid Incredible, by HTC.

It's not confusing if you know that, in the US, the average person doesn't think about buying a Motorola or HTC. They are buying their phone from Verizon, so it's up to Verizon to market them. That's why Verizon licensed the "Droid" TM.

HTC wouldn't be able to come out with a Droid 2 because that's Verizon's decision. The Droid 2 is coming out later this year, made by Motorola because that's the way Verizon wants it.

> (Motorola licensed it.)

Actually, Verizon did. Which is why their top mobile lines (Eris, Incredible, initial Droid) are all called Droid, the Droid is called Milestone in Europe.

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