According to DigiTimes, HTC’s slow-motion exit from the smartphone market will continue in 2022. According to rumors, the company is working on a new “metaverse” -a focused phone released in April. The remnants of the once-dominant smartphone manufacturer clutch to any current term to keep afloat.
HTC’s general manager for Asia-Pacific, Charles Huang, is the rumor source. Huang purportedly indicated at MWC 2022 that the company would release a new high-end smartphone with unspecified “metaverse” features next month. There are little data accessible, such as any specified markets where the metaverse may be acquired. Even what kind of AR or VR capabilities the new device would have.
The announcement sounds frighteningly similar to HTC’s most recent massive step toward significance: its Exodus brand of blockchain phones, which it has advertised for the preceding three years. The phones can operate blockchain networks and even create tiny amounts of bitcoin. Like many other blockchain apps, they were a solution searching for a need that never really took off.
For the sake of argument, a metaverse phone makes more sense than a blockchain phone, if only because HTC has been a prominent participant in the virtual reality field.
HTC’s most significant announcement at MWC 2022 was the launch of a mysterious “Viverse” – the company’s metaverse concept, which claims to combine VR, XR, 5G, blockchain technology, NFTs, and more into a new, futuristic platform.
Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Spaces and Microsoft Mesh aim to connect conventional devices such as smartphones into VR and AR experiences; it’s even possible to imagine a metaverse-integrated smartphone. In that way, the HTC “metaverse” phone may intimately integrate with the company’s VR headsets to provide a seamless, cross-device experience that radically affects how we think about using cellphones in virtual settings.
On the other hand, the metaverse phone may be a lousy smartphone with a few undeveloped virtual reality apps added. HTC’s Viverse website expressly declares that “any phone, tablet, PC, or VR headset” will be able to participate in its metaverse concept, complete with an example of a smartphone that appears to be doing so.
Given that HTC’s “Viverse” does not exist, it is easy for the company to claim it is working on a metaverse app or phone. Perhaps HTC’s next metaverse phone will be a surprise, the gadget that propels HTC back to the forefront of the industry. However, the company’s past performance does not inspire much confidence that this will be the case.
HTC used to make good phones in 2022 – models for Android and different versions of Windows Phone that were among the top gadgets on the market. HTC could not achieve long-term commercial success despite its hardware superiority, being pushed out on one end by Samsung’s more popular Galaxy devices and the other by Apple’s iPhones. As a result, today’s HTC is devoid of the engineers and designers that previously made its phones so distinctive. These engineers and designers are urgently fumbling with blockchain phones, metaverse phones, and whatever other enormous phrase comes next to stay afloat in a smartphone business that bears little resemblance to the one they formerly played a crucial role in.
