HTC Overview
News just broke that HTC has countersued Apple for patent infringement.
HTC recorded revenue numbers in April and bloggers wonder if the trend will continue.
Clearwire CEO Bill Morrow announced that they would introduce clear-branded handsets this year from Samsung and HTC.
The HTC EVO 4G from Sprint cleared the FCC and various leaks from earlier in the day suggest that it may be available as soon as June 6 (note, next week’s report will have full HTC EVO 4G coverage from today’s event and announcement). The Nexus One; however, will never show up on Sprint’s network.
The anticipated update to Android 2.1 for Sprint’s HTC Hero was delayed again while Verizon pushed the first round of an OTA update to Android 2.1 for the DROID Eris by HTC. Rumors also began to percolate as to when the myTouch3G may see an update to Android 2.1 with a shot of Espresso.
Rumors also circulated that the HTC Legend may be coming to AT&T and Bell while the HTC Desire may show up on T-Mobile.
A few reviews trickled in for the DROID Incredible by HTC, the HTC Smart, and even the HTC HD2. Meanwhile, the HTC HD2 survived a car crash.
Android outsold the iPhone and Apple got publicly defensive. Meanwhile, rumors that Verizon may carry the next generation of the iPhone persist as another iPhone 4G escaped into the wild in Vietnam.
Motorola’s Flipout may be too square to party.
The plot thickens as carriers explore next generation network opportunities.
key trends
HTC
HTC filed a complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission requesting a ban on imports of Apple’s iPad, iPhone, and iPod products. Gizmodo and AllThingsD posted details for the five patents they believe are cited, though HTC has not officially listed the patents and the official documentation has not yet become available through the ITC. The move is generally being described as “a pretty standard request with patent violation dealios” aside from the fact that HTC has at least not yet filed a corresponding federal lawsuit. Bloggers expect this to be a prolonged legal battle unless both this and Apple’s suit against HTC settle. Look out for more analysis as the story unfolds in the coming weeks.
HTC’s record revenue numbers for April caused a stir this week, showing that “life is good over at HTC.” In addition to the surging popularity of Android, HTC’s success to was often attributed to its “approach of saturating the market by rapidly releasing new devices,” There’s some nail-biting as to whether Apple will get in the way of sustained success between the pending release of the iPhone 4G and the existing patent suit, but optimistic fans such as Android Central think, “there’s really no stopping HTC.”
In this “Year of the Smartphone,” bloggers will be watching sales of the HTC EVO 4G and DROID Incredible by HTC closely as they go head-to-head with the new iPhone and eagerly await the release of HTC’s first Windows Phone 7 handset in Q4.
Rumors began this week that one of those Windows Phone 7 handsets from HTC could be a Clear-branded phone but were quickly cut off at the knees by Clearwire CEO Bill Morrow. The rumors grew out of an announcement by Clearwire that it plans to release Clear-branded HTC and Samsung handsets later this year. Although Clearwire described the Samsung phone as an Android handset, it was vague about what to expect from HTC except that it would not be the HTC EVO 4G, leaving room for speculation that the HTC handset could be a Windows Phone 7 handset. Clearwire CEO Bill Morrow cleared things up in an interview with CNET, however, when he said that, “Both phones will be Google Android-based.”
As of earlier today, those chomping at the bit for an HTC EVO 4G got an unofficial commercial of the handset and quite the earful of news and rumors this week. Phandroid posted photos taken by a supposed sales rep of The Shack suggested that the HTC EVO 4G could be available for preorder through The Shack by the end of the month and available in stores June 6 for $199.99 with a new contract. Engadget happily discovered that the handset cleared the FCC, “WiMAX and all” and hopes this is a sign that the phone is “one step closer to launch”:
There's not much to see here, really; it's still under confidentiality for the external photos, but at least they've cleared that all-important FCC hurdle on the way to retail, which will be... soon, Sprint? Right? Please?
Further leaks, this time from Sprint, suggest that the carrier is about to begin training employees on the phone and is finalizing the details of a plan for future HTC EVO 4G customers. Although there is some hope that Sprint won’t charge customers to use the WiMAX hotspot capability, leaked screenshots posted at Android Central suggest there will be a monthly fee for the service. As they said, “That's really not that big a surprise, however unwelcome.” More to come next week on today’s big HTC EVO 4G announcement.
As it ramps up for the HTC EVO 4G, Sprint announced definitively that it won’t carry the Nexus One. Most thought the news was “hardly surprising” even though it was only about two months ago that Sprint originally announced they would be getting the phone. The news led many bloggers to declare the concept of a Google phone “all but dead,” but didn’t exactly lament the loss. Boy Genius Report explained:
Singling out the lack of need for the handset in their portfolio thanks to the bigger, better, faster and stronger HTC EVO 4G, Sprint is no doubt going to raise the ire of the rank and file of the Android Army for killing what was likely their only change to have an Android smartphone exactly as Google intended it. But trust us… We’ve used both and think Sprint did the right thing.
Engadget could only think of one group that may be disappointed by the situation:
Of course, this might peeve a few folks who'd prefer stock Android over HTC's Sense UI -- if for no other reason than the fact that Sense-powered devices tend to have wildly longer firmware upgrade lag times than stock ones do -- but otherwise, the move seems to be a perfectly logical one.
Speaking of frustration over delays in updates, there were “shattered Android dreams” last week when Sprint declared in a variety of channels, including Twitter posts and forum comments, that the update rumored to be coming that day to Android 2.1 for Sprint’s HTC Hero customers would not transpire after all.
Then yet another Best Buy employee leak suggested that the update has been rescheduled for May 21, though bloggers are highly skeptical that the update will actually roll out on that date with Mobile Crunch referring to a “countdown to disappointment.” HTC was blamed for the delay in a number of posts, including one on Phandroid:
I reckon this is the last shot for some of you either looking at the HTC EVO 4G, or looking to move to a different carrier altogether. Just remember that HTC are the main ones responsible for engineering the update, so Sprint shouldn’t be held completely responsible for all of these delays.
Verizon, meanwhile, pushed a test OTA update for the DROID Eris by HTC at midnight on the 11th and is expected to continue the rollout to all DROID Eris by HTC owners “soon.” Verizon first got everyone excited when they posted a support site last week and then a leak by Mobile Crunch of internal Verizon communications suggested the update was “tentatively scheduled” to begin rolling out on the 11th. The update is mandatory and involves a system restore.
The myTouch 3G Slide continued to enjoy the spotlight this week as it showed up on eBay, pictures were posted, and multiple videos made the rounds, teasing those anxiously awaiting for its arrival on T-Mobile sometime in June.
The original myTouch 3G, meanwhile, should soon see an update to Android 2.1 “all dressed up in Sense (double yay!)” with the myTouch 3G Slide’s “Espresso” interface and a virtual “Genius” button. The news came out of a Techland interview with Andrew Sherrard, T-Mobile’s VP of Product Innovation. Most were excited but some, including both IntoMobile and Android and Me, were somewhat surprised to hear of the update, especially the fact that the Espresso interface would be included. According to Android and Me:
This is an interesting turn of events because we always heard that Google was in charge of the software updates for the G1 and myTouch 3G. We assumed they would remain stock Android devices, but T-Mobile has decided to change direction and go with Sense UI.
No timeline was provided for the update, but most bets are that it will roll out about the time that the myTouch 3G Slide is released in June.
Rounding out the rumor mill were speculations that the HTC Legend may be coming to and Bell in Canada and AT&T in the U.S., thanks to the fact that it just passed the FCC with AT&T bands, along with best guesses as to what T-Mobile’s “Project Emerald” may entail. Gazes into crystal balls suggest that it may be the HTC Desire or some other “Nexus One-like device,” potentially an HSPA+ handset, maybe a Samsung Galaxy S, or “this could just be a fancy way of releasing the myTouch 3G Slide.”
A few reviews trickled in for the likes of the DROID Incredible by HTC, the HTC Smart, and even the HTC HD2. The HTC Incredible generally continues to impress, with MobilitySite praising the design and saying “The Droid Incredible has it all.” They only found the signal reception flawed:
This is my main concern with the Droid Incredible. Verizon has a great network, and coverage is always amazing here where I live in Philadelphia, occasionally dropping one bar or so. On the Droid Incredible, I never got more than 2 bars of 3G, and it went to 1x at least twice a day. I don’t know if this is a hardware related issue, or maybe it can be fixed via a software update, but it’s something that really bothers me.
Anand Lai Shimpi posted an epic review of the DROID Incredible by HTC to Anandtech in which he praised HTC generally, said he thinks the phone “feels cheap, mostly because of the back cover,” compared the phone to the Nexus One a lot and the iPhone a little, expressed his thanks that “Verizon is encouraging you to tether from the moment you open,” and generally provided more than extensive support for his conclusion that the DROID Incredible by HTC is “clearly better than the Nexus One.” He hopes HTC may someday create a phone that he concludes trumps the iPhone:
What HTC has done is provided the best hardware platform for Android to date so that those users who have to choose between Apple and Google at least have a good representative from the Android camp. With some app consolidation, some additional features (e.g. server side email search for non-Gmail accounts) and a simplified Sense scene I’m confident we could see a HTC phone that even delivers the same clean user experience as an iPhone. Then you wouldn’t even have to choose.
SlashGear, meanwhile, posted their first impressions of the HTC Smart and found it had “very little lag” in spite of the fact that its processor “pales in comparison to even last-generation Android and Windows Mobile handsets.”
Bill Henley, host of NBC Philadelphia’s The 10! Show didn’t get a chance to fully review of the HTC HD2 he received but took the blogs by storm anyway. Henley told viewers about how he had been using an HTC HD2 in preparation for a review but that, while distracted in the parking lot, left it on top of his car. The phone fell off his car and was run over multiple times before Henley returned to the scene to retrieve the device. Although dismayed, he was shocked to discover that the phone still worked, apart from the screen, and demonstrated the ability during the show.
Lastly, PocketNow seemed to think that it was HTC history week. They enjoyed a game of Twitter trivia as they asked if anyone could recall the name of HTC’s first phone before posting HTC’s video tour of their own product history.
Platform
Android outsold the iPhone in the US in the first quarter of 2010, according to research released by NPD Group this week.
While RIM is “staying strong” in the top spot, accounting for 36 percent of Q1 smartphone sales, the big news was the growth of Android. According to the consumer survey results, Android’s sales have jumped over 20 percentage points in the past six months, reaching 28 percent of smartphone sales in the past quarter. Meanwhile, iPhone sales remained relatively constant, at 21 percent.
Bloggers felt that the trend in Apple’s sales could be attributed, at least in part, to customers “holding off” for the next version of the iPhone. In the long-term, however, consensus seemed to suggest that Android’s sales approach of multiple price points and broad network availability could work to Android’s advantage. Ars Technica summarized these market forces:
It's possible that Apple will retake second place with the release of the next-generation iPhone this summer, but in the long run, Apple may always trail in terms of market share. Under Steve Jobs, Apple has not been willing to license its OS out to third parties, and that's the exact strategy that Google has used with Android to vault it to the top spot. On top of that, Apple currently limits the iPhone to one carrier while Android devices are carried by several different providers. Both of these elements help Google push a high volume of devices.
In an uncharacteristic move, Apple quickly released a statement in response to the NPD report, refuting the validity of the data. Via All Things D, Apple’s Natalie Harrison made this statement:
"This is a very limited report on 150,000 US consumers responding to an online survey and does not account for the more than 85 million iPhone and iPod touch customers worldwide. IDC figures show that iPhone has 16.1 percent of the smartphone market and growing, far outselling Android on a worldwide basis. We had a record quarter with iPhone sales growing by 131 percent and with our new iPhone OS 4.0 software coming this summer, we see no signs of the competition catching up anytime soon."
Although several blogs had already pointed to the worldwide stats reported by IDC, bloggers cried foul at the combined iPhone and iPod Touch sales. IntoMobile found the response “blustering for the public’s sake,” ZDNET called Apple out for “fudging the figures” and Gizmodo chided, “Defensiveness is not a character trait that suits you well, Apple.”
Competition
As seems to happen every year around this time, the blogosphere is once again abuzz with rumors that the next version of the iPhone will be carried by Verizon. This year, according to Engadget, the rumors are getting harder to ignore:
It's one thing to say "hey, the iPhone is launching on Verizon," but we're noticing a particular confluence of facts that has us intrigued: it'll drop sometime in Summer, possibly in concert with the announcement that Verizon's first commercial LTE networks have gone live, and -- tread carefully here, because this is pretty difficult to believe and we don't want to get your hopes up only to have them smashed into a million pieces -- it'll supposedly even be a 4G launch device. We've gotten surprisingly specific details both from Verizon employees and tipsters whose companies are supposedly under NDA with Verizon to test enterprise deployments of the handset later this year, and they're all sending basically this same message.
Evidence is mounting on both sides of this claim. On the one hand, rumor has it that Verizon has been working with branding firm Landor Associates on an upcoming iPhone campaign. On the other hand, recently unearthed court documents confirm that Apple entered into a five-year exclusivity agreement with AT&T in 2007, indicating that the soonest the iPhone could move to another carrier would be 2012.
Another iPhone HD reportedly “escaped into the wild” this week, reappearing on the Vietnamese forum Taoviet. Bloggers noticed some “subtle aesthetic differences” between the Vietnamese handset and the one obtained by Gizmodo, indicating that this latest leak is a newer prototype.
The Taoviet content includes a video and photos breaking down the phone into components and reveals a processor marked with the Apple logo, indicating that the phone will run the same chipset as the iPad.
Apparently, it’s “hip to be square” in mobile this year. Rumor has it Motorola is poised to release an Android device shortly that will take advantage of this trend. Reportedly called the Flipout, the device is perhaps most notable as the first Motoblur device running Android 2.1. As IntoMobile noted, “This alone is enough to believe that an update for existing Motoblur device can’t be too far away.”
Most of the traditional mobile bloggers were unenthusiastic about the square look. BGR was “really not digging the design” and Pocket-lint called it “strange looking.”
General Mobile Tech
With the release of the HTC EVO 4G imminent, carriers are jockeying for position in the next-generation network conversation. This week, several news cycles illustrated the growing prominence of this discussion:
- Clearwater this week announced changes to its contract with Intel that would allow it to walk away from its scheduled WiMAX deployment with as little as 30 days notice. The arrangement had originally targeted November 2011 as the end date. This contract change led to immediate speculation that the network operator could be poised to abandon WiMAX or focus on dual development with LTE. Clearwater CEO Bill Morrow eventually clarified that the company would not move to LTE before 2012, but the buzz around this story does indicate that neither technology will be disappearing any time soon.
- Sprint, which owns a large share of Clearwater, also discussed the WiMAX and LTE standards in a recent earnings call. Based on comments by CEO Dan Hesse, it appears that Sprint is currently committed to WiMAX but has left the door open for a future move to LTE.
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