HTC is gone

JerryMungo

JerryMungo

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https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/02/htc-is-gone/?utm_medium=TCnewsletter

Gather around, campers, and hear a tale as old as time.

Remember the HTC Dream? The Evo 4G? The Google Nexus One? What about the Touch Diamond? All amazing devices. The HTC of 2018 is not the HTC that made these industry-leading devices. That company is gone.

It seems HTC is getting ready to lay off nearly a quarter of its workforce by cutting 1,500 jobs in its manufacturing unit in Taiwan. After the cuts, HTC’s employee count will be less than 5,000 people worldwide. Five years ago, in 2013, HTC employed 19,000 people.

HTC started as a white label device maker giving carriers an option to sell devices branded with their name. The company also had a line of HTC-branded connected PDAs that competed in the nascent smartphone market. BlackBerry, or Research in Motion as it was called until 2013, ruled this phone segment, but starting around 2007 HTC began making inroads thanks to innovated touch devices that ran Windows Mobile 6.0.

In 2008 HTC introduced the Touch line with the Touch Diamond, Touch Pro, Touch 3G and Touch HD. These were stunning devices for the time. They were fast, loaded with big, user swappable batteries and microSD card slots. The Touch Pro even had a front-facing camera for video calls.

HTC overlayed a custom skin onto Windows Mobile making it a bit more palatable for the general user. At that time, Windows Mobile was competing with BlackBerry’s operating system and Nokia’s Symbian. None was fantastic, but Windows Mobile was by far the most daunting for new users. HTC did the best thing it could do and developed a smart skin that gave the phone a lot of features that would still be considered modern...
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Now before you castigate me for clickbait, I know that HTC are working on a blockchain handset. I posted the article verbatim including the heading. I've lost a bit of respect for TechCrunch there - they seem to have forgotten about the HTC Exodus... also, HTC is not gone, they will continue with the Vive and other innovations.

As for the original G1 / Dream, it was an excellent phone and innovative at the time. They had a great opportunity to partner with Google to launch Android and did a pretty darn good job of it.

Anyone have an old G1 / Dream for me? Would love to have one in my collection.
 
mercurial said:
These guys were king back in the day. Sad to see their demise.
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I'm not so sure - I see it as an opportunity to reinvent yourself. What's happened here IMO is the guys at the top made an executive decision to get out of a pond filled with sharks. Too much competition for little return. They're going for innovation.
 
My first android phone was HTC Desire, what an awesome device it was!
 
they did have some great phones back in the day
 
Had plenty HTC phones over the years, my favourite was the HTC HD2 that came with windows 6.5, took it out the box and loaded android on it, was the best android device at the time.

I had it for 3 years and struggled to upgrade to anything else, I loved that phone, to me that was the best HTC ever made in its time, everything after that wasn't innovating and just copied competitors (in my opinion)
 
+1 to HTC for making fabulous phones...So yes, a sad departure.

I've used them since 2011 (had only 3 phones in that time) until late last year finally switching to Huawei...
Most recent acquisitions where the outstanding One S and then the One M8 which was voted one of the best mid range phones in 2014.
 
I forgot about my old HTC Desire HD. First Android phone I owned
 
JetsetWilly said:
Now before you castigate me for clickbait, I know that HTC are working on a blockchain handset. I posted the article verbatim including the heading. I've lost a bit of respect for TechCrunch there - they seem to have forgotten about the HTC Exodus... also, HTC is not gone, they will continue with the Vive and other innovations.

As for the original G1 / Dream, it was an excellent phone and innovative at the time. They had a great opportunity to partner with Google to launch Android and did a pretty darn good job of it.

Anyone have an old G1 / Dream for me? Would love to have one in my collection.
Click to expand...

I have an HTC Hero in the original box.
 
I bough an android HTC (Can't remember the model) when people were still buying black berries. It was a great phone, with a 600mhz processor.
 
HTC Desire was my first.
If I remember it still had physical buttons and I was in my ROM loading phase.
 
Ecco said:
My first android phone was HTC Desire, what an awesome device it was!
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'Twas my first phone and foray into the world of HTC back in 2010...loved it to bits myself.
 
killerbyte said:
I have an HTC Hero in the original box.
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Also have the Hero. Was my first Android phone. Came out with 1.5 still! Had it upgraded to 1.6 through Vodacom because I couldn't get the ADB working correctly. This was necessary because 1.5 did not have Bluetooth support. Unfortunately it also made the phone a bit slower. Still works though.
 
furpile said:
Also have the Hero. Was my first Android phone. Came out with 1.5 still! Had it upgraded to 1.6 through Vodacom because I couldn't get the ADB working correctly. This was necessary because 1.5 did not have Bluetooth support. Unfortunately it also made the phone a bit slower. Still works though.
Click to expand...

When I worked at PCFormat we got given the Hero by HTC and we were flashing new ROMs to those things as they came out. Those were fun days.
 
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