01/12/2009, 12:10pm, EST
Monday, January 12thHTC to ship iPhone-, Palm-killing Android phone?
Senior officials from Australian carrier Telstra claims on Monday that HTC is developing a smartphone that would trump devices from Apple and Palm. The executives, who observed some of the competition at CES this past week, say HTC has a touchscreen device in the works which is "better and more functional" than either the iPhone or the just-unveiled Pre and should have both a larger display than existing HTC phones as well as custom software written by the phone maker itself; the inaugural T-Mobile G1 currently uses only Google's stock software.
While primarily dismissive of the iPhone, the Telstra staff notes that Palm's phone has yet to reach the market and so has yet to really compete. The unnamed HTC device isn't expected to ship until the spring, or roughly the same time as the Pre reaches Sprint.
Whether or not the Telstra statements are accurate is unknown. Both the Touch HD and MAX 4G have 3.8-inch, 800x480 touchscreens and are considered large among smartphones; however, the reference may instead be to HTC's more widespread devices, such as the 2.8-inch Touch Diamond and Touch Pro.
The Taiwan-area company is best-known for its Windows Mobile phones but has already said it expects its second phone to ship in April.
Filed under: iPhone, mobile phones, Apple
Other story tags: Google, T-Mobile, Windows Mobile, Android, htc, Palm, Pre, Telstra
, 
, 10
, 
, 
, 
, 
, 
, 
Top
subscribe to comments
for this article
Interesting
At least Palm had a device to show us, the Telstra at this point is nothing more or less than hot air.
Not another one
Dog Gone
Not another one. Just put it on the shelf with the hundreds of other ones at Bestbuy.
HTC Touch
I'm not sure who is to blame, but the HTC touch with Windows Mobile on it was the worst piece of crap phone ever. Random lockups, poor screen response, really crappy battery life. No thanks.
HA!
Based on experience with previous HTC products, there is absolutely zero percent chance of any of their claims being true.
HTC makes terrible products, plain and simple.
Palm Dead, Blackberry?
This article was confusing... the title references Apple and Palm Android, but isn't Android just an OS for any Hardware company to use?
Isn't Palm largely dead in smartphone (until they come up with something).
There is no reference to the iPhone, except being 'dismissive,' (which is being rather short sighted).
No reference to RIM, which is the leader, and makes damn good products.
This equals either really bad reporting or YASPF (Yet Another Smart Phone Failure) from HTC
Telstra suxors
And there, in a sentence, is what's wrong with Telstra. As a carrier, concepts of "trumping the iPhone or Palm device" should be alien to them. Telstra, however, has a history of being antagonistic towards some companies and favouring others for reasons that have nothing to do with customer satisfaction or service. I have no idea what phone is better (sorry, this is MacNN: GO iPHONE!) but Telstra should be in the business of selling access, not creating partnerships of dubious value to customers.
HTC
This all assumes that Apple and Palm just sit on their respective rear ends and do nothing. That won't happen. Apple didn't sit still with the ipod and I doubt they do with the iphone.
Telstra
Come on !
Telstra .. these are the same guys that before Apple released the Iphone told Apple it should stick to what they know best and stay out of the mobile phone market. We all know how that turned out.
HTC. I would never buy or own another HTC device crap !
Functional
It depends what's meant by 'more functional' - I'd imagine that many telco executives have no idea what that means, but confuse it with having more features (i.e. video recording, etc).