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Barron's says Taiwanese company High Tech Comp![[pic]](http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2008/6/22/ba_am759a_high__20080620175825.jpg)
uter's 3G Touch Diamond is "at least as good as the iPhone."
Features and advantages include:
- An iPhone-like touchscreen.
- A Qualcomm (QCOM) chipset that many say is superior the iPhone's Infineon (IFX) product.
- A replaceable battery.
- Video features the iPhone lacks.
- A 3D interface.
- A jump start; it started shipping in May.
Analysts say a $199/8Gb iPhone (AAPL) will undercut HTC's margins and could be a major problem. Others think the iPhone's discount is a mirage; once you factor in the added premium for iPhone carriers' two-year service plans, buyers may be spending more over time. (Ed: this may be true, but what percentage of buyers exhibit this level of forethought?).
HTC also has two strong-armed supporters: 78% of all Microsoft (MSFT) Windows Mobile phones are made by HTC; and it plans to ship an Android (GOOG)-enabled phone before year-end.
======================================================
Andrew Horowitz thinks Microsoft's upshot from its HTC partnership is great.
Here's the rub: HTC may indeed have beat Apple to 3G by a couple months, but Apple won the touchscreen phone race hands down. With a 3G iPhone imminent, how impatient must Touch Diamond buyers be to not wait things out and see if HTC's mysterious "certain video niceties that the iPhone doesn't have" continue to outshine iPhone's killer software and elegant user experience.
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This article has 48 comments:
The HTC Touch Diamond however brings something brand new to the already burgeoning Windows Mobile market (20 million sales, 90% YoY growth) Its graphics 3D UI looks much better than even the iphone, its browser is better and more standards compliant, and it already has the library of must-have software and business manageability features that the iPhone is still aspiring to.
In short, HTC already sells more phones that Apple, and the Diamond is a very worthy contender that will limit Apple's supposed 45 million iPhone upside to much less than half that.
Other than those with a pure interest in new technologies and an appreciation for the flexible characteristics of the HTC phone will realize its superiority. Interestingly to me, and perhaps I'm a party of one, the HTC line is to the iPhone what the Macintosh is to the PC. A true reversal of roles on a corporate level.
My HTC Tilt which like the iPhone is part of the AT&T lineup, has brought more oohs and ahhs than any iPhone once the viewer realizes its capabilities.
Now that the Touch Diamond is selling in the UK, I hope we will start to see a change in the 'must have iPhone' attitude.
I have seen the Diamond reviews and they arent good. Folks actually need to use these products before making these outlandish statments about chipsets. The infineon chipset is just being developed, who do you know the Qualcomm chipset is better? You guys are getting desperate.
As long as phone vendors, such as HTC, keep releasing phones which are difficult build applications upon, they will be at risk.
Apple is building a phone targeted at developers. Consumers almost always follow the developers over time since that is where the apps are happening. I can tell you, being a developer myself, that developing software on a unix-based phone platform is pretty compelling.
----------------------...
Thats pretty ironic, considering all the restrictions on the iPhone. Adobe do not know if they can do flash, styletap do not know if they can do a PalmOS emulator, Slingplayer do not know if they can sling over 3G, Skype know they are completely banned, Mozilla says they wont go near the iphone with a ten-foot pole etc etc.
To read about real developers and the problems they have on the iPhone, read here.
Pocket Informant on iPhone to be poorer than on WM
wmpoweruser.com/?p=183
Lonnie D.
very hilarious....HTC vs iPhone like Mac vs Windows
i pissed in my pants
as cool as it might look the HTC is just a phone and even if on paper
it can claim more features , have you people used one ??? LOL
The more the "hounds" are chasing Apple, the more the boyz in Cupertino have to ACCELERATE things.
If they lose a few sales to the "hounds' GREAT, make Jobs and Ives SWEAT a little I say!
{ disclosure: long 2600 shrs AAPL }
I have seen it before, It is all about the hype, quality, application, itunes. Every single person in the world will get the iphone 2. They would not have sold every single iphone 1. Dig it once and for all. We are talking 70 countries vs 6 countries on July 11.
Bottom line: the iphone has evolved into a Pocket Mac, so people should come to terms with this insight.
Once Apple has world-wide distribution under its belt, the ecosphere will grow to unimaginable proportions. More and more developers will be coming on line, new products and businesses will emerge to serve the iPhone. And a new mobile platform, a transformative, disruptive paradigm in mobile computing will be born. And nothing will come close to matching it.
BWAAA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!
HTC? Never heard of it till now. Never even SAW one. (I've seen hundreds of iPhones, however.) AND it runs Windows??? If it doesn't run Apple OS, I am not interested. I am a former DOS / Windows user and systems administrator who migrated to Apple about 10 years ago and have never looked back - so I want as little to do with MS dreck as possible.
The only close competitor iPhone had was Blackberry - and with the new generation, that is going to be sucking eggs soon.
I have no idea where these gentlemen are getting their outlandish ideas - but I can make a guess... Redmond.
I live in Sydney, Australia, where the latest Mac store just opened downtown, to lines 1/2 mile long. Pre-orders for impending iPhone (first ever release here July 11) are already surpassing expectations (I have insider info at Optus-one of two carriers). In one of the most hotly contested mobile markets in the world, these things will fly out the door, whilst HTC and all other wannabees will languish in Apple's dust.
I'm long AAPL, and will laugh even more after this consolidation finishes and we see it hit $250 by year end.
Surur, every single thing you mentioned is not true
I'm not going paste a bunch of links, but while its technically easy to develop software for the iPhone, getting it published is another thing. The flash thing is a perfect example. All the other software suffers the same issue. Steve Jobs says No bandwidth hogs, no real time navigation, no multi-tasking, no VOIP over 3G, no interpreters etc etc.
How about doing some research before criticizing.
@Zach
With most media not coming from Apple, the market outside of the itunes lock-in is still wide open. These devices support wide range of codecs and drag and drop, meaning its compatible with people's increasing DRM free library, and support standards like A2DP that free people from the iPod dock lock-in.
@F.J Taylor
Just because you dont know the market does not negate the fact that HTC already outsells the iPhone, and will again in the next 12 months. HTC has huge carrier support, and all the carriers who did not get the iPhone will be knocking on their door.
You haven't answered the serious factual inaccuracy charges Roberts made. If it's true that ADOBE, Mozilla, Slingplayer and Skpe support (or will soon support) the I Phone, then you have posted a serious bunch of falsities. And your refusal to even address your earlier claims and the charges against you casts suspicion upon your motives.
-Nitin
Good luck Barrons.
Where's Toni?
This gambit is no surprise.
Mobile Firefox not for iPhone, Android
wmpoweruser.com/?p=139
In the words of Tristan Nitot, President of Mozilla Europe:
“For the iPhone, Apple’s license can not install software to have an interpreted language. But Firefox includes JavaScript, which makes it legally impossible to carry on the iPhone….For Android, Webkit is integrated into the OS, and only Java applications can run. And Firefox is not written in Java. So that’s why [Fennec will not run on Android]. However, in both cases, things may change in future, but it does not depend on Mozilla.”
iPhone SDK Rules Block Skype, Firefox, Java ...
apple.slashdot.org/art...
"Apple's iPhone software development kit is already drawing complaints due to the strict terms of service. Voice over IP apps like Skype that attempt to use the cellular data connection will be blocked. Competing web browsers Firefox and Opera are forbidden. Even Sun is now backpedaling on its recent announcement of a java port, noting that there are some legal issues. Critics are already comparing Apple's methods to Comcast's anti-net neutrality filtering, and Microsoft's Netscape-killing antitrust tactics. Could Apple face government regulators?"
Adobe bites its tongue after iPhone Flash jab
news.cnet.com/8301-107...
As my colleague Tom Krazit reported Tuesday afternoon, Jobs used the Apple shareholders' meeting to publicly dismiss the the full-blown PC Flash version as "too slow to be useful" on the iPhone. He then went on to describe the mobile version--Flash Lite--as "not capable of being used with the Web."
Now all of these apps may come to a jailbroken iPhone, but that is assumed to be a small minority of the market, but until Jobs loosens up his iron grip the iPhone will always be a worse platform to develop for.
Move along....nothing interesting here...
DON'T MAKE ME LAUGH, IT HURTS!
So how many of you Apple fanboys are posting here using iPhone while lining up for July 11th release?
Can it run the iPhone apps ? No ? Too bad. Case closed.
----------------------...
Thats a joke. It seems the iPhone is in need of WM apps, not the other way around, and that the presence of a full web browser with Ajax support, Youtube integration and a gesture-based interface and accelerometer rotation did not remain iPhone exclusive for very long. In fact with many cellphones getting visual voicemail it seems there is not much left that defines the iPhone.
Maybe you should stop answering your own questions.
Vista users reverting to XP are an astounding 62%.
Place your bets.
Don't people think...they do nothing but blah..bhal..by writing their opinons (sure I do know..mine is one of those BLAHS!!)? I guess what people need to 'show' only benefits of features of products/systmes. It keeps blog more INTERESTING.
Thanks to all for their inputs. Sure, it helps/ed to know WORTHINESS of products.
Enough I think that HTC would do well if it has the best iphone-like phone.
If AT&T and/or Verizon start offering internet
on phones for free or close to free, possibly ad supported, the market for touch screen phones is going to EXPLODE!
Windows mobile is dead, and it's been on the market for eons now. No one is the slightest bit intersted (except a few posters here, apparently).
Regarding WM being dead, funny how the HTC Touch outsold the iPhone in Europe, isn't it.
are you referring to the official sales by a handful of carriers??
What about all the unlocked iphones which made their way from USA to Europe??
Stop being selective and vague in your "facts"
And, HTC will be more of a threat to RIM than to Apple.
Mock the fact that the iPhone 3G is very similar to the original iPhone? Well this fact makes the platform a bigger target for development.
No Firefox? The iPhone already has a great browser, and the idea of releasing the SDK is not to try and do an alternative implementation of existing apps but to create new ones.
No Flash? Well thank goodness for that. Open web on which all devices and software will have an equal chance of working and where innovation will not be stifled.
No Java ME? Gosh I will miss those great Java craplets...
Tight SDK rules? Yes I would like some engineering thought applied to software running on mobile hardware, and someone taking responsibility for the end user experience.
Signed apps from the mobile app store? Often seen as a way for Apple to 'control' what will be sold (and sure - violators of the SDK agreement will be stopped) but will in fact just secure the platform from malware. Anyone creating applications that people actually want will benefit from the additional security that enables users to download with confidence.
HTC with Windows Mobile a threat to the iPhone? Nowhere near I'm afraid. You have to take your head out of the feature tick list and look at broader factors that make platforms and products a success. The platform is great for developers (sure - you can find some with objections), the app store creates a viable market place for those developers, and the it brings feature-phone ease of use and performance to the smartphone market. It already has critical mass to entice developers to it, and when iPhone 2 hits the streets any Windows Mobile device will only be for those that are pre-disposed NOT to buy Apple (for whatever strange reason).
wmpoweruser.com/?p=204
BTW, here is an article that demonstrates how the iPhone browser is less standards compliant than the Opera Mobile 9.5 browser (not PIE) on the HTC Touch Diamond
Regarding standards compliance, you misunderstand my position. I am delighted that the Opera browser is even more standards compliant than Safari. The vendors of each have similar goals - an open web. But I guess you were counterpointing my argument about Flash? Well I'm afraid Opera's better standards compliance is not a counterpoint to why I think Flash should be omitted.