HTC’s plans to enter the wearables market were thrown into confusion with two conflicting reports last month. One suggested that the company had decided to park plans to release a smartwatch for now while another was still working on such a device but would only launch it 2015. In an interview with Re/code, Jason Mackenzie President, HTC Americas cleared up the situation.
In a nutshell, development has not stopped but the company’s products are not ready for a launch this year. “We had originally planned to have a wearable launch in this time frame,”explained Mackenzie “It ended up just not being ready.”
HTC’s Vice-President of User Experience, Drew Bamford, gave additional details on what the company has in mind. “We’ve seen a lot of general purpose wearables come to market,” he said. “There’s not a strong reason to wear one every day. When we come to market with our product we want to make sure the product has a strong point of view and there is a really compelling reason to strap it on your wrist.”
Bamford promised that HTC will provide more information on its wearables strategy early next year. “We think the strategy we were working on will get us there, but we want to take our time and get it right,” he explained. “We honestly don’t think anyone has gotten it right.” This certainly lines up nicely with earlier reports that HTC wanted to “stand out from the crowd” with a device that “consumers will more immediately gravitate toward.”
Note: The HTC Omni pictured above is a concept device.
Source : Re/code