HTC is still making smartphones of its own, even though it lost a substantial amount of engineers when it sold part of its mobile division to Google last year.
The struggling Taiwanese smartphone maker will unveil a new handset on May 23rd, according to a recent message the company posted on Twitter. Teasing the upcoming event for “a phone that is more than the sum of its specs,” the message features an image of smartphone parts that seem familiar.
As it turns out, HTC is using old iPhone components to drive up hype for its new phone, the HTC U12. At this point, however, it’s hardly likely that anybody gets excited about a new HTC phone that’s not Pixel branded.
The company posted the following image a few days ago, leaving it to readers to notice that the parts in the picture belong to HTC’s iPhone-making rival.
Coming Soon. A phone that is more than the sum of its specs. pic.twitter.com/m2skJSK0qt
— HTC (@htc) May 3, 2018
It was AnandTech readers who first noticed that HTC showed off iPhone 6 components in its ad. It’s pretty easy to verify that: just look at iFixit teardowns of the phone.
Apparently, HTC meant to use iPhone parts in its teaser. Here’s what the company told CNET:
We’re glad people are studying our teaser so closely. The fact people have noticed parts from different phone models is exactly right – they represent the jumble of parts (specs) that our competitors inelegantly cram into their phones, while the space in the middle outlining HTC’s next phone represents ‘a phone that is more than the sum of its specs.’
To be clear, none of the parts illustrated in the teaser came from the phone we’re announcing May 23rd; people will have to tune in to htc.com that day to find out more…
Say what now? Is HTC going to cram parts elegantly in its next phone? Will anybody care?
