At long last, an iPhone competitor?
Looks like HTC may finally have something to compete with the iPhone:
HTC Touch HD takes 480 x 800 pixels fullscreen
Hope it is true. As it could finally drive Apple to evolve the iPhone to have more memory (256+ MB), faster CPU/GPU, larger screen (3.8") with higher resolution (720x480), more storage (32+ GB) but we know this is coming, better camera, and more general purpose software features (file manager, user customization, more software access to hardware, etc, and yes Adobe Flash support). It's amazing, but iPhone hardware has changed very little in the past year except for HSDPA and aGPS. With a 3rd gen iPhone likely not arriving until mid-year next year, it'll mean Apple will be essentially shipping the same phone for 2 years.
That's actually quite an amazing feat!
HTC Touch HD takes 480 x 800 pixels fullscreen
Hope it is true. As it could finally drive Apple to evolve the iPhone to have more memory (256+ MB), faster CPU/GPU, larger screen (3.8") with higher resolution (720x480), more storage (32+ GB) but we know this is coming, better camera, and more general purpose software features (file manager, user customization, more software access to hardware, etc, and yes Adobe Flash support). It's amazing, but iPhone hardware has changed very little in the past year except for HSDPA and aGPS. With a 3rd gen iPhone likely not arriving until mid-year next year, it'll mean Apple will be essentially shipping the same phone for 2 years.
That's actually quite an amazing feat!
Comments
Personally, I think OS X is what makes the iPhone superior. Plenty of other phones already have amazingly brilliant, big, touch sensitive screens. What they don't have is the OS.
Is the shape of the device and the screen what makes it a competitor in your mind?
Personally, I think OS X is what makes the iPhone superior. Plenty of other phones already have amazingly brilliant, big, touch sensitive screens. What they don't have is the OS.
exactly. oh and by the way, the iPod/iTunes functionality is also a huge plus.
Is the shape of the device and the screen what makes it a competitor in your mind?
Personally, I think OS X is what makes the iPhone superior. Plenty of other phones already have amazingly brilliant, big, touch sensitive screens. What they don't have is the OS.
It's all in the screen size. To date, no company really has released a touchscreen phone of comparable screen-sized outside of the old Windows Mobile Professional PDA/Phone monsters of yesteryear (which were usability pen-input nightmares). Palm PDAs too, but they were at least a little bit more usable than WM.
The larger screen size is a touch UI usability multiplier. As it gets larger, the more usable touchscreen elements get. You can't carry this out as it is a cell phone platform, but it seems 3.5 to 4 inch diag at 3:2 to 16:9 aspect ratio is the sweet spot. Any larger it gets unwieldy. This HTC looks to have a 3.5"-ish screen, maybe a bit larger.
To date, most of the competitors have been 2.6 to 2.8 inch 4:3 aspect ratio or 3 inch 16:9 aspect ratio screen, making their touchscreen functionality not that much useful outside of pushing virtual buttons. The iPhone has 1.5 to 2x more screen area at 3.5". So once competitors start to get screen-sizes comparable to the iPhone, things like web-browsing and video-watching get pretty nice, and hence competitive.
The iPhone OS X usability is light-years ahead of everyone else right now yes, but the gap is getting smallerwith more and more of Window Mobile's UI being hidden behind touchscreen interfaces. This closure will hopefully drive Apple to improve iPhone OS X. There are many many things for Apple to do yet too.
Looks like HTC may finally have something to compete with the iPhone:
HTC Touch HD takes 480 x 800 pixels fullscreen
Hope it is true. As it could finally drive Apple to evolve the iPhone to have more memory (256+ MB), faster CPU/GPU, larger screen (3.8") with higher resolution (720x480), more storage (32+ GB) but we know this is coming, better camera, and more general purpose software features (file manager, user customization, more software access to hardware, etc, and yes Adobe Flash support). It's amazing, but iPhone hardware has changed very little in the past year except for HSDPA and aGPS. With a 3rd gen iPhone likely not arriving until mid-year next year, it'll mean Apple will be essentially shipping the same phone for 2 years.
That's actually quite an amazing feat!
That thing doesn't compete with the iPhone, not even close.
If it was just a horsepower game the N95 would have taken that trophy long ago. The software on this bad boy is sluggish for one, and it's W-mobile under the hood. It's a sluggish, glossy disguise, over an aged operating system, and it doesn't connect with iTunes. It's useless.
Not really good enough in the face of what's out there right now.
Attack of the iClones: HTC Touch HD Edition
Sure, it doesn?t have the Apple/iPod ecosystem behind it and it?s still using TouchFLo 3D to try to hide the UE (user exasperation) that is Windows Mobile 6.1, and multiple layers of OS are never a Good Thing, but this is the first iClone that?s actually got us worried.
You guys can keep on saying the iPhone is better and easier-to-use and more pleasurable-to-use, but better technology, be it software or hardware, doesn't win marketplace wars. The best business plans do. Now, Apple has got a great business plan with the iPhone, but it's mostly consumer market driven, and targeting the top 10% of the market. It's the right place to be as companies can actually make oodles of profit, but they'll keep get eaten away from the bottom and can be vulnerable to side-market advances. Namely, competitors such as RIM and MS/HTC who serve the enterprise markets, and are entrenched, can branch out to the consumer market easier than Apple entering the enterprise. Especially since Apple doesn't really care about the enterprise.
With devices like this HTC Touch HD showing up, even the Blackberry Storm to a lessor extent, the iPhone's cachet of cool will fade a bit, unless Apple moves faster. Like I said in the first post, the iPhone, both EDGE and HSDPA versions, is essentially a 2 year old phone in another 6 months. That's a long time.
Not only does Apple have to evolve the iPhone faster, they also have to have multiple lineups, including mid-range versions (~$129 with contract), maybe even a $400 version with contract again, and they have to evolve the software even faster. I think they've lost the Internet video format war, should stop fighting it and support Flash movie formats at least. Either that, or start making some deals with the other video sites to have H.264 content like they did with Youtube. They also are being very conservative with enabling the computing capabilities of the iPhone. It's a mistake to limit it to a "cellphone" only. They can market it as it is now, but more computer like functionality is a viral feature.
My expectations are high here for Apple. That their motives are to dominate the smartphone market at least, say 60 to 70% of the smartphone market (60 to 80 million units a year), but their strategy really seems to be only trying to get 10%. They're vulnerable at 10% from the likes of HTC coming up with a device like the Touch HD.
when i see people wait in line for 5 days or pay someone to stand in line for a cellphone AND its not the new iphone, then i might look at the story
the market determined the iphone to be a killer cellphone, not some jibber jabber reporter
we need better threshold for such a description...the media mention is weak
it should immediately be discounted if moble windows is the os
Touch HD NOT Coming to the US!
HTC just broke the horrible news via twitter:
"sad news, US. we looked into it- by the time we could bring Touch HD to the states, it would be old news. we do have other cool stuff coming"
In other words, the Touch HD with its gigantic screen, 3.5 mm headset jack, and general iPhone-challenging form factor is going to be import-only for the US and, on top of that, it's likely never to see the 3G bands used by AT&T.