Connect with us

Mobile

HTC: iPhone No Longer Cool, Microsoft Misses the Mark

Published

on

Acting president of HTC America Martin Fichter went on record to criticize both Apple’s and Microsoft’s approach to mobile at the Mobile Future Forward conference in Seattle, Washington. Ficther says that Apple’s success is its own curse while Microsoft fails to capitalize on the boom over 4G networks.

In speaking about Apple, Fichter says that the iPhone is losing its appeal among the younger generation of smartphone users. When young people see their parents and older people using the popular smartphone, the phone becomes less hip and loses its cachet.

I brought my daughter back to college — she’s down in Portland at Reed — and I talked to a few of the kids on her floor. And none of them has an iPhone because they told me: ‘My dad has an iPhone.’ There’s an interesting thing that’s going on in the market. The iPhone becomes a little less cool than it was. They were carrying HTCs. They were carrying Samsungs. They were even carrying some Chinese manufacture’s devices. If you look at a college campus, Mac Book Airs are cool. iPhones are not that cool anymore. We here are using iPhones, but our kids don’t find them that cool anymore.

In regards to the Microsoft mobile platform, a platform that HTC uses on a number of its phones, Fichter feels like Microsoft had missed the mark when it comes to riding the 4G hype in the U.S. Though the company’s latest HTC TITAN will be a 4G handset running the latest Mango software update for Windows Phone 7, that device is only able to tap into the HSPA+ protocol and not WiMax or LTE for 4G.

It has shortcomings in some areas, so I am quite happy to see how Mango has improved all of that. I think Windows Phone 7 is probably a bit hampered by the whole energy in the industry right now for 4G. All the carriers are pushing their 4G networks and with Windows Phone 7 not yet supporting that … there is a shortcoming there that is not so much a problem for the end-consumer, but it is a problem for the consumer not being pushed towards Windows because another phone might be more attractive to cell phone carriers.

In the U.S., 4G LTE is currently being championed by Verizon Wireless, which is rolling out a high-end Android portfolio, commanding at least a $100 premium on device pricing with a two-year contract. So far, there are no Windows Phone 7 devices that are available for Verizon’s 4G network, or for that matter Sprint’s 4G WiMax network.

Via: WMPU via Geekwire

20 Comments

20 Comments

  1. Holdenkramer24

    09/13/2011 at 11:53 am

    Yea androids are so damn cool until they start glitching out and become slow as fuck the iPhone operates like a dream android turns into a bumpy rollercoaster that you fuckin hate in the end

  2. Dan

    09/13/2011 at 1:17 pm

    Oh my God! I am 30 and I just have to own whatever the college kids have! The only reason college kids have HTC and Android phones is because they are cheap (you see BOGO deals all the time). People that actually work and have a choice go fir the iPhone.

  3. techneffect

    09/13/2011 at 1:29 pm

    WP7 is an OS is better than Iphone and Android, who needs 4G all that is is hype and it just drains your battery life quicker.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpI8252TieM&feature=channel_video_title

  4. Anonymous

    09/13/2011 at 1:46 pm

    Nobody cares about HTC. Gotta love the “president’s” reasoning: because parents have it therefore kids will hate it. I think that’s the only thing good that HTC has going for it. They can’t possibly compete technologically.

  5. milo

    09/13/2011 at 3:29 pm

    ok so you had to find a way to fault MS just because someone criticized the iPhone..
    the blogger takes something the HTC guy said, and puts it out of context. Weak!

  6. Rbdomingos

    09/13/2011 at 5:58 pm

    What a digitard Mr. Fichter is!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.