HTC pivots from blockchain to the metaverse for its subsequent smartphone gimmick

HTC’s slow-motion fall from smartphone grace is reportedly set to proceed in 2022, with the corporate mentioned to be engaged on a brand new “metaverse”-focused telephone in April because the remnants of the once-flagship smartphone firm continues to desperately cling to no matter zeitgeist time period it might to remain afloat, according to DigiTimes.

The information comes from Charles Huang, HTC’s common supervisor for the Asia-Pacific area, who reportedly commented at MWC 2022 that the corporate could be introducing a brand new high-end smartphone subsequent month with unspecified “metaverse” options. Details are slim, together with any specs, markets it’ll be launched in, and even what sort of AR or VR options the brand new machine will provide.

The information sounds lots like HTC’s final main pivot in direction of relevancy: its Exodus line of blockchain telephones that its provided for the previous few years. Promising decentralized apps (“Dapps”) and a built-in cryptocurrency pockets, the telephones may run blockchain nodes and even mine paltry quantities of cryptocurrency, however — like many situations of blockchain expertise — it was an answer largely looking for an issue that by no means actually took off.

For argument’s sake, a metaverse telephone would no less than make barely extra sense than a blockchain one, if solely as a result of HTC has truly been a serious participant within the digital actuality area.

HTC’s primary announcement at MWC 2022 was the debut of a nebulous “Viverse” — the corporate’s metaverse idea that guarantees to fuse VR, XR, 5G, blockchain expertise, NFTs, and extra collectively into a brand new, futuristic platform.

It’s even attainable to think about what a metaverse-integrated smartphone may very well be, given the existence of initiatives like Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Spaces or Microsoft Mesh, which intention to assist combine conventional gadgets like smartphones into VR and AR experiences.

In that vein, a high-end HTC “metaverse” telephone may optimistically be one which ties deeply into the corporate’s VR headsets for an built-in, cross-device expertise that boldly modifications how we consider using smartphones (and different gadgets) in digital settings.

That mentioned, the metaverse telephone may be a lackluster smartphone that has a number of half-baked VR apps preloaded. For what it’s value, HTC’s Viverse website does explicitly name out that one will be capable to work together with its metaverse idea from “any phone, tablet, PC, or VR headset,” full with a picture of a smartphone that seems to be doing simply that.

Given that HTC’s Viverse doesn’t actually exist — nor does widespread adoption of any trendy metaverse idea — it’s simple for the corporate to simply say it’s making a metaverse app or telephone. After all, who’s to say that you just aren’t?

Maybe the metaverse telephone that HTC is launching shall be a revelation, the type of product that launches HTC again to relevancy and places the corporate again on the forefront of the business. But the corporate’s latest historical past doesn’t give a lot hope that it is going to be.

It’s virtually troublesome to recollect in 2022, however HTC used to make good telephones — gadgets for each Android and the totally different variations of Windows Phone that had been among the many finest {hardware} you may purchase. Phones just like the legendary HTC HD2, the HTC Evo 4G, the HTC One X, the ultra-sleek HTC One, or the jewel-toned HTC U11.

But that was, in some ways, a unique firm than the HTC of immediately, earlier than the corporate offered chunk of its smartphone expertise to Google in a $1.1 billion deal again in 2017. Since then, Google’s Pixel telephones have solely gotten higher and higher, whereas HTC’s smartphone fortunes have languished.

Despite its {hardware} chops, HTC — like LG, Motorola (previous to its personal trials and tribulations with Google), and different Android machine makers — was unable to seek out lasting industrial success, squeezed out by Samsung’s extra common Galaxy gadgets on one finish and Apple’s iPhones on the opposite.

And that brings us to the HTC of immediately: hollowed out of the engineers and designers that when made its telephones so nice, frantically flailing with blockchain telephones, metaverse telephones, and no matter different main buzzword comes subsequent to remain afloat in a smartphone market that hardly resembles the one by which it was a serious participant.

It’s not that HTC is totally devoid of ambition or good merchandise: the corporate’s nonetheless producing high-end digital actuality headsets aimed toward companies and not too long ago launched its unique-looking Vive Flow headset for extra informal prospects, too.

Then once more, wanting again at merchandise just like the Evo 3D or Facebook-focused HTC Status and HTC First — it’s attainable that being doomed to chasing gimmicks on the highway to irrelevancy was all the time HTC’s destiny.