HTC launches new design studio to create better phones

February 6, 2012 | By Surur

HTC did not have a good Q4 2012, and blames it on thicker LTE products with poor battery life (possibly the HTC TiTan II?)

Here is what HTC CFO Winston Yung said in their earnings call:

“When we look back to the 4th quarter of last year, we simply dropped the ball on products. If we compare some of the products that we have launched, (especially in the U.S., LTE products) with some of our competitors products, you’ll see thicker form factor for example. And LTE at this point also has some compromises, like battery life. So we simply need to do a better job on both the design, and also the internals and the components of products.

They however have a plan to succeed:

And these are the various areas where we will be working on. From the design point of view, from the choice of components, having a lot more open mind as to what components we use, and using the most appropriate components for the phone. By having a more focused approach to our product strategy, and having the organization behind the product strategy to support it. I think I have told some people when talked about the creation of this “Studio”, which is a department within HTC that reports directly to Peter (Chou, HTC CEO). And this group of people comprise the team from design, the team from engineering and etc; working on a cross disciplinary approach, and reporting directly to Peter. It has a lot of focus, is spending a lot of time on the key products that we are going to launch this year. And I think from these various perspectives, organization more focused on strategy and having a more open mind on components, choosing the best components, will allow us to regain the edge in products. “

Hopefully the initiative will also involve their Windows Phones, meaning we will also see super thin and super sexy Windows Phone 8 devices at the end of the year.

Via Unwiredview.com

About Surur

Site Admin and Windows Phone enthusiast, he has been using Windows Mobile devices since before they were called PocketPC’s. He is currently sporting a HTC 7 Trophy.

Tagged design, htc, news

Anonymous

Radar wasnt terrible but no where near the design standards of the Lumia or iPhone, this is a good decision. Hopefully they make more awesome WP7 devices for ALL carriers

Anonymous

Awesome? From HTC? Keep dreaming….

Anonymous

I direct your attention to the HD2, one of the best phones ever made… they need to get back to being awesome, Android caused them to lose their way by battling to get the most low end handsets out they possibly could to stay relevant

Anonymous

I really don’t care about the HD2 or HTC’s yesteryears; your comment stated that you hope that they make more ‘awesome WP7 devices’, to which I totally disagree with HTC currently making ‘awesome WP devices’.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_5ZUD73FFTF3JFLR64AD62R7Q6I Eric

I have been terribly disappointed by the recent HTC products. Especially the very poor battery life and the pathetic internal storage (Titan / Sensation XL).
They also failed to innovate and were lazy particularly with Windows.

Nonetheless, I’m one of those who still believe HTC are better than other devices. This brand has something special. If they do some efforts (better battery life, bigger storage) they can be successful again very soon.
http://twitter.com/kieranmcelhinne Macs

It wasn’t wp7 that’s hurting HTC but Android. They cut corners with hardware, very slow to produce updates if and are more expensive. These cut corner devices at premium prices just won’t sell. This is something Nokia need to take note off. Price and hardware specs matter.
Anonymous

“HTC did not have a good Q4 2012, and blames it on thicker LTE products with poor battery life (possibly the HTC TiTan II?)”
Come on… You can’t even buy HTC Titan 2 yet. They are talking about their Android 4G LTE products (they have smaller battery and Android…)
http://twitter.com/mrcraggle Craig Osborne

We won’t see super thin or sexy WP from HTC. We’ll get clones of their Android offerings.

Anonymous

^This. Not nary a mention of ‘style’ or ‘unique aesthetics’ in their laundry list of changes they want to make. Just having a thin device does not make a device attractive enough to purchase based on that alone.

I really don’t think it will matter what ‘tech’ choices they make under the hood – their clone and boring looking devices are not going to turn any heads, except for those spec hound geeks that don’t care how attractive their phones look; the style conscious will leave HTC devices on the shelves.

So happy that WP has Nokia.

Anonymous

looking forward for HTC to continue to produce great looking windows phone. They have some great hardwares in the days of windows mobile.