Rudderless HTC builds a “Metaverse” smartphone with NFTs

HTC is someway nonetheless making smartphones. The most recent from the corporate is the HTC Need 22 Professional, a 399 British pound (~$486) mid-ranger that represents the corporate’s first smartphone of 2022.

HTC says this cellphone will someway provide help to “enter the metaverse,” as “the cellphone to hold you into the longer term.” The metaverse is the most recent tech buzzword firms have been hyping up. It is roughly used to imply “VR-related.” The cellphone itself doesn’t appear to have any precise VR options. HTC’s newest VR goggles, the Vive Circulation, use an Android cellphone because the controller and might present the cellphone display screen contained in the VR atmosphere. This cellphone comes with that Vive Circulation controller app, however you possibly can set up it on any Android cellphone that helps miracast and get the identical options.

Presumably the buzzword gimmicks are meant as a distraction from the truth that the HTC Need 22 Professional is a generic-looking mid-range cellphone. It has a Snapdragon 695, a 120 Hz, 6.6-inch, 2412×1080 LCD, 8GB of RAM, 128GB of storage, and a 4520 mAh battery. It has Android 12, a fingerprint reader, wi-fi charging, a microSD slot, and an IP67 water-resistance ranking, which HTC solely describes as “splash proof.” For cameras, you will have a 65 MP essential digital camera, a 13 MP ultrawide, 5 MP depth sensor, and 32 MP entrance digital camera. HTC’s spec sheet curiously additionally lists “Face ID” as a function, which is an Apple trademark. HTC most likely means generic face recognition.

HTC’s buzzword-driven product improvement

HTC’s slightly disjointed technique is what I’ll name “buzzword product improvement.” The corporate latches on to regardless of the newest tech buzzword is and vaguely touts it as a function that can change all the pieces, solely to discard the thought a 12 months or two later. In 2014, the corporate’s scorching new fling was the “Web of Issues,” which it interpreted as a digital camera with no viewfinder and a health band that by no means launched. In 2015, a brand new obsession with VR introduced HTC’s solely profitable new product line, the HTC Vive, although you possibly can attribute most of that success to the involvement of PC gaming juggernaut Valve. (Valve discarded HTC for its second headset, and now HTC appears to have give up the PC-VR market.) Subsequent the corporate was very enthusiastic about “5G,” so its subsequent massive product was a 5G hotspot that price a whopping $600, thanks largely to being a full flagship Android system within the unpocketable type issue of a sensible show.

Currently, what’s left of HTC’s smartphone division has introduced this rudderless buzzword product technique to smartphones. In 2017, the corporate touted AI and machine studying as the longer term, promising the HTC U Extremely would result in a complete “transformation” of the corporate. 2019 introduced the HTC Exodus, a “Blockchain Cellphone” that might run a full Bitcoin node, a wildly inappropriate use-case for a battery-powered, sluggish, storage-limited cell system. Now we have the Metaverse cellphone, and by the best way, the corporate has already signaled its subsequent fling can be with augmented actuality.

We at all times ask the identical questions of this smartphone-buzzword gimmick: How does this make the cellphone higher? Why would anybody need this? Why is that this a promoting level over your rivals? HTC by no means has passable solutions. To the extent that these telephones really do something associated to their advertising buzzwords, the combination is often only a piece of included software program—an app that you possibly can simply as simply set up on a greater cellphone from a severe producer. It is the identical story for this metaverse cellphone, which is simply preinstalled with the available-to-anyone HTC Vive app.

Oh, by the best way, we have another buzzword for you: NFTs, which this cellphone additionally has, in fact. HTC really launched the “Vive Arts NFT retailer” just a few months in the past, and this cellphone has an app for it referred to as the Vive Pockets. Most invocations of “NFTs” contain a pyramid scheme the place individuals purchase URLs of unhealthy art work for absurd quantities of cash. HTC describes its NFT retailer as “designed for the humanities and tradition,” and on this case, it confirmed somebody viewing an image of a Cat Mona Lisa from their smartphone.

Up to now, the one confirmed international locations for availability appear to be the UK and Taiwan. Within the UK, the HTC Need 22 Professional is up for preorder now and can ship August 1.