Since it’s launch in 2007 over 33 million iPhones have been sold worldwide. Hoards of patrons commandeer the walk ways outside of Apples’ museum-like stores, vying to be the first to get their hands on what Time magazine named “The Invention of the Year” in 2007.

Since then, despite Apple maintaining control of the development 100k apps have been created for iPhone users. A virtual limitless array of helpful tools and some with not so obvious uses have come from this gold rush.

Whether a user, “fanboy” or hater it’s hard to argue the impact that the iPhone has had on the handheld market.

With all that said the iPhone wasn’t the first smart phone and it isn’t the newest either.

Since its inception there have been numerous iPhone “killers”. The David that would inevitably slay Apple’s Goliath.

The Android G1, Palm Pre and Blackberry Storm seemingly had the upper hand in many cases but it seems that the wars waged have been lackluster. But why? These “Davids” have touch screens, apps, better cameras and even real keyboards. Everything the iPhone has and is lacking. How has Apple been able to sell 3 versions of the same device in numbers that far outweigh the competition?

Last week the latest iPhone ‘killer” hit the market and shows great promise. It’s sales in the first 2 weeks (250k) rival those of the iPhones first 2 months (270k).

I have been asking my Twitter peeps why the Droid is better than the iPhone. I keep seeing the latest news, blog posts and hyped up comments like “Droid FTW!” but have no real feedback that makes sense.

People keep citing the “real keyboard”. First of all, a real keyboard is about 10 inches wide and doesn’t require hands the size of tree-dwelling cookie chefs to type comfortably.

Then I was told that it has a 5 megapixel camera. Yes, very true but good luck getting a clear shot. Early reports are in and the camera is slow to fire and processes blurry. This was demonstrated live on Attack of the Show and tested by yours truly.

Turn-by-turn navigation is pretty rad and so is this walking/ transport navi I keep reading about. This is the type of innovation I like to see. Applications that prove useful in real life. Directions and street views via Google maps. Analog interaction via digital means. However, these are things that I either can do now with my iPhone or could do next week or month as soon as an app is created.

So I pose the question again. What can the Droid do that the iPhone can’t?

Sure it runs stuff in the background but as soon as I launch my iPhone apps they update so a saving of a couple seconds isn’t enough to get me to switch. What about battery life? Same. Cost? Same.

Many people responded to my question citing the service. “At&T sucks!” is a popular reply and it’s this popular response that tells me everything I need to know.

The Droid is NOT better than the iPhone. Just like the Pre is not better than the Droid. The Pre has everything the Droid has and arguably a much better OS, multi-touch and sweet charging thingy. When I asked why the Droid was better than the Pre the response was surprisingly not feature based but again service based. “Verizon is better than Sprint”. Sounds a lot like “AT&T sucks”

This leads me to the conclusion that the Droid is not the iPhone killer. AT&T is. Apple is sleeping with the enemy.

It’s monogamous relationship with AT&T is causing a shift. If Apple was able to remove “AT&T sucks!” from the anti-fanboy fanboy’s arguments then the conversation would be reduced to a semantic argument over who has more apps. Droid in this case with 12k apps loses to iPhone’s 100k, for now. With a mere 320 apps, Pre loses to the Droid.

It could be said that Droid users are Google fanboys and that being anti-Apple is the new black.

If you ask me Palm needs to open their eyes and realize they are sitting on a gold mine and open up development and hire some kick-ass ad agency to relaunch the Pre although it’s likely too late.

I roll with a 1G iPhone. I don’t have 3G, though have used one, but don’t feel I need it. I use about 5 apps any given day and have about 20 downloaded.

I’m not sure that being able to cite quantity over quality is the best method for app development but I guest quantity boils down to quality. Like cooking with wine.

For me this is not the Droid I’m looking for. It’s a great step in the right direction and 3.0 will undoubtedly be better. Just remember that as long as we have several companies dueling for our ducats we as consumers win.

The Droid’s success will likely be followed by AT&T improving service or Apple expanding with another carrier. Good for Droid and good for iPhone users.

It’s when we all become fanboys that we lose and give the companies what they want most which is blind devotion. It’s cheap to maintain and very profitable. How many iPods have you owned? They all play the same music.