HTC Teases Its Next Flagship Smartphone. Too Bad, the Photo Shows Parts of an iPhone 6. (anandtech.com) 58
HTC has begun to ramp up marketing campaign for its next major smartphone release, teasing that they will be making a proper announcement on May 23rd. From a report: In an email sent to the press this morning and posted on their website, HTC posted a photo of neatly laid out phone components, with the text "Coming Soon... A phone that is more than the sum of its specs." The photo and the announcement give a May 23rd date for more details. AnandTech has added an update to the story, (Via DaringFireball ): As pointed out by a reader, these aren't new components. Or even components of an HTC phone. Rather they're a disassembled iPhone 6...
Too bad (Score:5, Insightful)
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True, normally that's a good thing, but when the first association people have of it is "iPhone clone", maybe... not so much.
Doubly so when it hits the press and everyone associates the ad with iPhones instead
"HTC's newest smartphone has launched, but there's just one problem - it's an iPhone! Photos of HTC's newest smartphone, instead of showing the phone itself, showed an iPhone instead..."
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Re: Too bad (Score:3)
I used to have HTC phones, but when I discovered that they suffer from two major flaws I left them.
The flaws are that they are filled with bloatware and that the battery essentially can't be replaced because it's wrapped in the phone so badly that you damage stuff if you try to replace it.
Now I use a CAT S60 instead.
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Re: LG is gay (Score:3)
Give me a phone that runs VMS instead.
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Are these ad companies so clueless that they don't think some nerd is going to notice this?
Yes.
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> Be interesting to see how this plays out. I'm sure Apple will capitalize on it.
I can already see the tag llines:
"Apple phones: good enough to be used by the competition for their marketing"
Re: Incompetence (Score:1)
Possibly they are aiming for that demgoraphic who think that recent Apple products have gone to shit. Just like I could think that an early 201x year Macbook Pro would be a sweet machine for Windows 7, I could think that an iPhone 6 running a fresh version of Android could be pretty nice.
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an iPhone 6 running a fresh version of Android could be pretty nice.
Indeed. A device that has a bad camera, no storage expansion and a battery that tends to bend and crack the case, and a software ecosystem that allows malware and useless apps ridden with cryptomining ads. The best of both world.
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You actually think the ad company cared about what nerds would think? You’re serious?
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Are these ad companies so clueless that they don't think some nerd is going to notice this?
They probably were assuming such a nerd would also be able to parse the clear implication that an iPhone is merely the sum of its specs.
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I think the marketing people were like. “Cool looking stock photo!”
Normally for HTC there isn’t the rabid fans who will interpret every pixel in an add to find deep meaning.
Re: HTCs new phone has iPhone parts? (Score:2)
If somebody was refurbishing iPhone 6's and putting current Android on them for an attractive price, it could be a good seller. I would consider getting one.
But I have NetBSD running on a Mac SE/30 (one of Apple's best products ever)
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If somebody was refurbishing iPhone 6's and putting current Android on them for an attractive price, it could be a good seller.
It could become a thing for neo-hipsters (those who pour their starbucks latte in mcdonalds cup).
Doesn't look exciting (Score:2)
The incredible was my first smartphone. Changed my life. Pity HTCs general lack of oled has stopped me from becoming a repeat customer. I'm currently in the process of moving from an Iphone x to a v30; the U12 expected specs are not tempting for my usage profile.
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Well you don’t show the trend of being a loyal customer. If you are are willing to drop a $1k phone in under 6 months. Ok I can get the iPhone X may not be for you. But normal people will stick with it for a while to at least get its money worth.
If the iPhone X was your first iPhone you probably should had done more research on the trade offs going to Apple.
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3 months. I'll sell it and lose about 200. Although I could look at it as gaining 400 back when I swap to a used V30.
It was my second iphone. They've got some nice features. A nice long update cycle. They're willing to tell carriers to go hang themselves as far as bloatware goes. The 3d touch is superlative for editing text and is in every way superior to the android spacebar swipe method.
But the x has a useless 'home bar' ui element that you can't disable. It breaks my immersion every day in so many ways,
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I won't put up with the damn thing ruining something I spend twenty hours a week doing.
If you read that much you should really consider a Kindle. It's so easy on the eye it's like reading a printout, even in the dark with the backlit screen.
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I've had four kindles and even a sony ereader way back when they were in the ebook game. I liked them very much, especially Kindle 3. I was very angry with myself when I knocked it off a shelf.
But the kindle app in 'black mode' on an oled screen is like vanilla ice cream for my eyes. It's just plain better, with smoother transitions, perfect blacks, wonderful contrast, and laser sharp lettering. It's also much better at displaying graphics, for displaying the store, and for popping over to some other task I
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By the way, the kindles are not back lit. They actually diffuse the light across the surface of the e-ink screen. That's actually why they're so easy on the eyes in the dark, it's as if just the kindle was illuminated by a lamp.
Is that not the point? (Score:3, Interesting)
They are comparing themselves to their competition. "Not just the sum of its parts", and then showing the parts of an iPhone. The message I get from that is "not just an iPhone"; implicitly, "...but something better". How is this a gaffe at all?
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I never had a phone that fell apart after a year.
The phone I hated the most was a Motorola flip phone back in 2002 where the connector to the power charger just got corroded and didn’t work after 2 years.
Re: Is that not the point? (Score:1)
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I never not had an HTC fall apart within a year.
My sister's current HTC is the only one that has survived* for longer than 9 months.
*This post is about my sister, not about her phones.
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How is this a gaffe at all?
Because people everywhere are now talking abou.... ooooooooooohhhhhhhhh.
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Mixed in there are some parts that are most definitely NOT iPhone 6... like when has Apple ever made an iPhone you could stick a microSD card in (or dual SIM)? The tray holds one.
There are two iphone camera modules present (iPhone 6 is a single camera?) but there are also two smaller camera modules in the picture that definitely don't belong in an iPhone. What?
In fact, there seem to be a lot of parts from 2x iPhones in there now that I look. And some other bits tossed in?
So they're saying (Score:2)
they'll dismantle/destroy/interrupt the iPhone market with their new Phone.
???
Profit!
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Until you realize it’s HTC and then you prepare for disappointment and being let down.
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I think that are saying. We liked the look of this stock image.
Misunderstanding (Score:2)
Non-story (Score:2)
We're glad people are studying our teaser so closely. The fact people have noticed parts from different phone models is exactly right – they represent the jumble of parts (specs) that our competitors inelegantly cram into their phones, while the space in the middle outlining HTC's next phone represents 'a phone that is more than the sum of its specs.'
To be clear, none of the parts illustrated in the teaser came from the phone we're announcing May 23rd; people will have to tune in to htc.com that day to find out more