A Sneak Peek at Android in Sprint's Hero

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Listen up, Apple(AAPL) watchers: The iPhone-killer might not be a phone at all, but an operating system called Android.

The upside to staying up all hours watching the New York Yankees outlast the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim in the divisional MLB playoffs is that we small-business types have plenty of time to wonder what is up with Verizon's(VZ) Droid spots. These gritty, text-oriented ads gun for the smart phone brand leader, AT&T's(T) Apple iPhone. The spots dis the unit for having no changeable battery or multiple-application support. The problem is, Verizon is mum about the Droid. Verizon spokeswoman Brenda Rainey declined to fill me in on the device, other than to hint it would be a multi-application smart phone, with real small-business upside, based on a new version of Google's(GOOG) mobile-operating system called Android.

Right away, you should understand that Verizon taking on AT&T in smart phones is a surprise. Sure, the iPhone gives AT&T bragging rights. But strictly by the numbers, one has to wonder if Verizon wouldn't have been smarter to stick to known smart phone waters.

Verizon is like all phone companies: It has issues. In its June 2009 filing, the company said sales were up a decent 11-ish percent year-over-year. But top-line expenses are also up a not-so-decent 15%. New costs are rising faster than new business, which usually means you won't stay in business long.

And it's not like the company's wireless business is the agita maker here. Wireless revenues grew a respectable 28% in the same period. Dying wireline sales, brutally costly fiber-optic deployments and the Alltel merger are investor buzzkills for Verizon.