With the release of the DROID 2 fast approaching, the death of Motorola’s first Android phone was an unavoidable casualty in the name of progress. While the DROID platform lives on in the Milestone and Milestone XT, a certain piece of Android philosophy has died today with the DROID. Verizon’s website shows the DROID is no longer available:

The DROID 2 will undoubtedly ship with yet another iteration of Motorola’s now-infamous encrypted bootloader, and without the flaws that made the rooting of the DROID X possible. While the likelihood of new and exciting exploits allowing root access on the device emerging is high, Motorola has clearly taken a hard-line stance against the Android development and hacking communities.

Presumably, the DROID 2 will prove as successful, if not more so, than its predecessor in terms of sales. The original DROID remains the most popular Android phone on the market, and Motorola has clearly taken no big risks on the design of the DROID 2, which is remarkably similar in exterior appearance to the DROID:

Similarities aside, it is now clear Motorola wants you to know that there are some things DROID does not. Namely, anything Motorola doesn’t want it to. While this does only affect a minority of “enthusiast” users, the end of the DROID and the succession of its heir can certainly be described as bittersweet for some.

With that, we say goodbye to the phone that truly took Android to the mainstream.

Source: Droid-Life