HTC has a problem. It realises it’s addicted to new phones. And if HTC’s execs make good on recent words, we may no longer be drowning in a torrent of the company’s new models every other week. Finally.
HTC easily makes some of the strongest and most interesting hardware out there — its Titan Windows Phone is one of my favourites, but the Titan is the case in point, as only a couple months later, the Titan II is already headed our way with only marginal spec boosts. People who bought the original are likely going to feel screwed, and those who haven’t purchased either are likely going to feel confused.
The confusion sets in as soon as you look at HTC’s offerings. Let’s take a gander!
HTC Velocity 4G
HTC Sensation XL
HTC Explorer
HTC Rhyme
HTC Sensation XE
HTC Radar
HTC Sensation
HTC Evo 3D
HTC ChaCha
HTC Salsa
HTC Incredible S
HTC Desire S
HTC Wildfire S
HTC HD7
HTC 7 Pro
HTC 7 Trophy
HTC 7 Mozart
HTC Desire Z
HTC Desire HD
HTC Aria
Sweet Christ — those are only the phones currently available. I need a valium after writing down that list.
Meanwhile, Apple puts out one iPhone at a time, once a year, with prominent, profound upgrades from model to model. Well, except for the 4S. But still. The scattershot approach cheapens HTC’s efforts, and far more importantly, makes it harder for all of us to find the coolest new phones.
But TheNextWeb reports a change of heart (or return to sanity) on HTC’s part:
We have to get back to focusing on what made us great — amazing hardware and a great customer experience. We ended 2011 with far more products than we started out with. We tried to do too much.
So 2012 is about giving our customers something special. We need to make sure we do not go so far down the line that we segment our products by launching lots of different [phones].
Yes. Good. Fewer phones. Space them apart. Fewer phones. Many, many fewer phones. Please. Good. [TheNextWeb]