
HTC’s Android dream in tatters as HTC One sales disappoint - cooldeal
http://wmpoweruser.com/htcs-android-dream-in-tatters-as-htc-one-sales-disappoint/
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SwellJoe
I've had four phones manufactured by HTC: Google dev phone, G1, Nexus One, and
a Sensation 4G.

The first three were wonderful phones. Absolutely loved them. The Sensation
just frustrates me. Sense makes no sense to me; it's obviously inferior to
stock Android, and leads to inconsistencies and long waits before OS updates.
T-Mobile has packed it full of their shovelware, which cannot be uninstalled,
and was not present on the prior three phones (I guess Google provided the OS
image on those).

The Sensation has _horrible_ battery life. If I use it heavily, it doesn't
even last a whole work day. It also feels flimsier...I haven't had any issues
with it, but I've also managed to avoid dropping it very often or very far, so
it hasn't been tested.

I won't be buying another HTC device, and I won't be buying another device
that has a custom Android image or is loaded with crapware. I had no idea the
average Android experience was so poor; I thought all Android phones were as
awesome as the Google-branded devices. I'm very frustrated that I paid $500
for a phone that is so disappointing (I paid full price, as I'll also never
sign another two year contract), so I'm not too disappointed that HTC is
taking a beating.

Maybe they'll stop wasting money on Sense, which is garbage, and instead focus
on making phones as good as the G1 and Nexus One again. If they do, I might
consider another HTC in a couple of years. If not, Samsung will get my next
purchase (a friend's got a recent high end Motorola that's even worse than my
HTC).

~~~
rogerbinns
BTW The G2 was also an HTC phone, but without sense and only a tiny amount of
carrierware. It too is a good HTC device.

My followup phone has been the GSM Galaxy Nexus which is pure Google,
especially in the sense that updates come from Google and not Samsung or my
carrier.

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css771
I think HTC is failing more because they've failed to understand what
consumers want. The HTC One X was an incredible phone but they went with a
non-removable battery that significantly held it back compared to the Galaxy
S3. The locked bootloader on the ATT One X was just too bad. And for all their
touting of the camera, the Galaxy S3 has the better one. The silly decision to
implement aggressive process killing was just stupid. And for some people, no
sdcard option didn't cut it.

And no these aren't just features geeks would want, even if they are, geeks
influence buying decisions of a lot of people. So they're definitely
important. Especially at a time when HTC wants to build up a strong brand with
their One series. And for all their trumpeting that they would release only
flagship devices, they keep releasing phones all the time. And they fail to
release their devices with a consistent branding across all american carriers,
or at the same time.

HTC Sense adds no features (like e.g. a notification power control widget like
samsung's touchwiz has.) It's just too bloated.

Plus it's just be the fact that the mobile industry is incredibly competitive
right now. I don't imagine HTC will have any better luck with WP7/8.

~~~
Steko
"And no these aren't just features geeks would want"

Yes they are. By and large no one cares about removable battery, locked
bootloader, non-aggressive process killing or SD card option. You know how we
know this? Because the iphone doesn't have any of that. The things these
phones have that the iphone doesn't that non-Geek consumers care about are
LTE, the big beautiful screen and perhaps the price.

The reasons the One isn't selling like the Galaxy S3 are pretty clear:

(1) bigger screen

(2) better battery

(3) walk into a Verizon store and see which phone get's shoved into your face.

~~~
css771
The apple comparison can't really be made on the android side because the
apple brand is a very strong one. iPhones can sell based on brand alone
whereas HTC can't really rely on that.

I think for the first in a series like the HTC One to really take off, it has
to appeal to the early adopters and those are the geeks surely. And then if
they like it, they'll recommend it to their friends. If you build up some
diehard fans, surely it will be better to iterate ensuring the relative
success of a HTC One X successor.

~~~
Steko
I think the whole notion of customers weighing specs carefully and choosing
one high end Android phone over the other is overblown. If the salesman really
wants to sell you the EVO you'll probably end up with the EVO.

Of course some people do come in with their heart set on something they or a
friend had so I'm sure the brand thing you're talking about is real. I don't
think it's the reason for the magnitude of what's being claimed for it here.
Intending to buy a Samsung phone only works if the store is selling Samsung
phones and we saw a nice version of this math play out while the iphone was
only on AT&T and at 17% US market share. It's a tribute to Samsung's marketing
staff that pretty much every store has a bunch of Samsung phones at all price
points in it.

In another post here I demonstrate even if demand were even for the two of
them the absence of the HTC One at Verizon would result in a huge sales
disparity.

There's an oft cited idea that I don't entirely agree with but seems useful
here: the real customers for Android phones are the carriers.

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jbellis
Too bad, my One X is a great phone. Best camera I've had in a phone by a
_wide_ margine, and has permanent nav buttons so it doesn't need to waste
screen space on that. Also better battery life than the Galaxy Nexus I tried
first.

~~~
pkulak
The nav buttons are not a good thing, as evidenced by the menu button mess
they've now gotten themselves into. Soft buttons don't waste space. They go
away when you do things like watch a movie.

The One X is a great phone. But it's got that Sense garbage on it and the
hardware buttons. Plus its tendency to close every app that's not in the
foreground.

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jtreminio
Almost every review I've read has made the case that the One X is superior to
the Galaxy SIII, yet the Galaxy is outselling the One X by quite a huge
margin.

I am unable to remember ever seeing a single One X commercial, but know I've
seen quite a number of Galaxy SIII ones.

~~~
nazgulnarsil
humans disproportionately weight the possibility of negative experiences over
positive experiences. If people have no bad experience with one product they
will purchase its sequels over the unknown. No one is going to shoulder the
psychological costs of switching unless the expected benefit is really big.

This is why branding is so important, and why samsung is smart in their naming
scheme. HTC will reap similar benefits by continuing to put out slightly
better phones under the same moniker for several iterations, but it will take
time for those benefits to accrue. (they should probably call the successors
the HTC Two line or something similarly easy to understand).

~~~
malkia
This is so not true when comes to the biggest AAA video-games, and fan-boys
never happy with them :) - like boycotting them months before the game is
released, even making their avatar with a picture of the Boycott, and then
later seeing them buying it with the avatar unchanged...

Or maybe even movies - well it might work - for Friday bad movie night :)

~~~
nazgulnarsil
are you applying artistic taste standards rather than box office standards?

~~~
malkia
have you ever heard of a AAA indie movie?

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spiralpolitik
The One X is a very well designed phone. Distinct, yet familiar and instantly
recognizable as a HTC phone.

Personally I wish they'd went with soft buttons rather than hardware ones, but
even the hardware buttons look good compared with ones present on other
phones.

Maybe Google will throw them a bone and hit them up for the Nexus One X...

~~~
pkulak
I would sell a kidney to get my hands on a Nexus One X.

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tsotha
I've had the HTC Incredible for two years. Up until a few months ago I would
have said it was a great phone with no problems. Then HTC pushed out a new
release that broke it, such that it reboots itself randomly between 2:00AM and
6:00AM (some nights just once, other nights many times), and they still
haven't pushed out a fix. And of course every time it boots you hear
"Droooooooooiid".

I have to turn my phone off when I go to bed now, which is lame.

~~~
jonah
I think it's time you jailbreak that thing and install cyanogenmod on it.

I've done so on mine and it's solid, fast, no sense, and no annoying boot
sequence.

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mindstab
I have a desire HD and I have to say Sense UI is poorly programmed garbage. I
would really much rather have stock android UI. Maybe slapping an inferior
memory eating solution to a non-problem on top of android is their problem?
They could save money on dev and have a better product by getting rid of it.

~~~
revelation
I have a Desire HD and a week ago they announced they will not be releasing an
ICS update for it, citing a lack of flash storage. It took them about a year
to find that out, about the same amount of time that ICS has been running on
my device through a custom firmware, and just a few days ago, I installed a
jelly bean image.

It mostly works fine, but the biggest problem with custom firmware is the
bad/unstable hardware support. You need the propietary driver blobs, and only
HTC has the means to get them.

Personally, I hope they go bankrupt. I would never buy another HTC product,
from the complete lack of software support for what is supposed to be a
smartphone, the defective included SD card to the completely closed down
bootloader and inane protection measures. It has been a complete disaster.

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pook1e
I _really_ hope there is an HTC nexus phone in the pipeline. It seems to me
that their Sense skin is what strays people away from their phones. Their
hardware, on the other hand, is incredibly beautiful and well built.

Another Nexus One might be exactly what they need.

~~~
coopdog
Yes, for the love of god yes

If HTC (or someone) would make a line of phones that offered vanilla Android,
OTA updates within 30 days of google releasing them, and a two year update
guarantee, I think they'd find themselves selling a a lot of phones. Compete
on hardware and service and sell skins as a premium upgrade if you really want
to be in that market

Building a UI just to have a brand is just fail

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Steko
The Verizon Factor:

Assume that if a user walks into a store he has an equally likely chance of
buying the HTC One and Galaxy S3 if both are present. If neither is present
give half the missing sales to the other.

Assume Verizon, ATT, Sprint and T-Mobile have 40%, 34%, 14% and 10% of the US
market respectively.

Observe that HTC One is not available at Verizon.

Now in our admittedly simplified marketplace we find the HTC phone is outsold
by a 2 to 1 margin.

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pkulak
If they would just put AOSP Jelly Bean on a phone like the One X, it would
probably fly out the door. Instead they put all this effort into hardware,
then make it all worthless with horrible software. But you have to
"differentiate your brand!" I like Samsung just because their shitty Android
modifications are less intrusive and heavy handed than HTC's even shittier
modifications.

~~~
binarycrusader
I strongly disagree. I actually owned an HTC One X briefly. The sense UI was
perfectly fine, and I don't think the average consumer would care one whit
about the AOSP interface differences.

The things that ultimately made me return it were:

    
    
      * camera inferior to Galaxy SIII
      * bluetooth caused my car's bluetooth module to crash
        and reset constantly rendering hands-free mode useless
    

Now with that said, I haven't tested the Galaxy SIII's bluetooth yet. It could
have the same issue, but the two above were enough to make me return it. For
now, I'm just waiting until my old phone dies before I bother getting another
Android phone.

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bstar77
HTC is dead in the water. They don't control any part of the supply chain
(like samsung) and don't have an ecosystem to monetize (like amazon, apple).
HTC is not going to survive another two years in a market where these devices
are becoming more and more commoditized.

~~~
greyboy
They just closed the NC office, too. Rather abruptly to my surprise friend
employed there.

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base
HTC is nice, but my last phone HTC Desire S has some bugs that will make not
buy from this brand again: the GPS takes 10min to get a signal, I have random
reboots from time to time , and sometimes it gets frozen when updating
software through the google store.

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snewe
Blog spam? Original story: <http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20120803VL204.html>

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cmelbye
This is really too bad. By far, HTC produces some of the nicest Android and
WP7 hardware out there.

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onedev
MARKETING

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vaultboy21
wonder if this will lead to more focus on WP?

i mean, Android just looks like an incredibly crowded market and it seems even
if you put out a great device (One X) it's hard to compete.

in this context i think, despite all the criticisms, Nokia was probably
better-off going with WP, despite all the challenges

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barista
HTC was one of the first to manufacture smartphones. Their old windows phones
were nice but the new HTC surround and a couple other android phones too don't
really stand out.

