Dear HTC: Please Design a New Phone
The HTC One M9. Or maybe the M8? (Daniel Howley/Yahoo)
BARCELONA, Spain –– Almost exactly one month after Groundhog Day in America, HTC unveiled its newest smartphone, the One M9, at the Mobile World Congress here in Barcelona. Looking at the phone, you might feel a bit of déjà vu: The One M9 looks almost exactly like last year’s One M8, which was already essentially an enlargement of 2013’s HTC One.
HTC is now a company with Groundhog Day syndrome. It is repeating the same phone launch over and over and over again. Its official spokesperson is Robert Downey Jr.; they may as well have hired the guy who played Ned Ryerson.
What’s going on?
SIX MORE MONTHS OF WINTER
From HTC’s point of view, of course, the design hasn’t become repetitive, but rather, an already pretty perfect design is being further refined.
"People say the One M8 is the most beautiful smartphone on the planet," Peter Chou, the CEO of HTC, said during the unveiling. "But we didn’t stop there. We aimed higher, and challenged ourselves." He then introduced Drew Bamford, a lead designer at HTC, who said that it had "built on the DNA" of previous phones. This is true, especially when you consider that genetic cloning is a form of building on DNA.
The HTC One, on the left, and the HTC One M8, on the right. (Photo: BGR)
Design perfection is a fine goal, but it rarely comes through stagnation. The cameras and the software and the speeds of HTC’s smartphones are quantifiably improving every year; the design team, meanwhile, seems stuck in a Harold Ramis time-loop comedy.
I’m not criticizing here to be mean or to start a flame war, but rather because I know HTC can do better. The HTC One was the first phone that, on the grounds of hardware design, not only matched the iPhone but outshined it. The back was a beautifully-curved strip of metal, and the front featured a modern and hip symmetric top-bottom speaker setup. It was like a Futurist sculpture with a 4G chip, and stood high above the plasticky, Mattel-like smartphones that Samsung and Sony were making at the time.
This could have been the first brick laid in a new design powerhouse. HTC could have been so relentless in improving its phones, breaking molds, and pushing design barriers each year that its competitors would be forced to elevate their games, too. Instead, HTC has basically repeated itself for the past two years: shifting around the power button, sanding down the edges, and trading out different shades of grey (not 50, but close).
HTC’s competitors, meanwhile, have nearly caught up. LG, Sony, and Google all make thoughtful, refined smartphones; Samsung, the one-time king of cheapo depot phones, just debuted a far more refined Galaxy S6. And every two years, at least, Apple comes out with a thinner jolt of a phone. HTC has become complacent, reliving its glory days each year with a throwback to its proudest moment.
BLOW IT ALL UP
HTC has other problems. Its advertising campaign with Robert Downey Jr., which cost a reported $1 billion, has fallen flat. And the phone’s name –– HTC One M9 –– sounds more like a license plate number than a device you want to tell your friends about.
But if HTC is really going to rise to its potential and catch up to Samsung and Apple, it’s going to start by blowing us all away again with its design. The design of the phone is the first thing people look at, the first thing people notice. No improved social media integrations or homescreen improvements are going to replace the electricity of a bold new design, an attempt at something fresh, the shock of experimentation.
Let’s try another clumsy metaphor: In 1980 Harold Ramis directed Caddyshack. He could have spent the rest of his career pursuing forgettable Caddyshack sequels and knockoffs; instead, he gave us National Lampoon’s Vacation, Ghostbusters, and –– yes –– Groundhog Day.
Caddyshack, by itself, would have been an accomplishment; it’s a masterpiece. But how many sequels would Caddyshack really have needed? And, more precisely: At what point would moviegoers have stopped caring?
