HTC Touch Innovates the Windows Mobile Platform - First Take

Michael Gartenberg | June 05, 2007, 07:18 AM

HTC announced a new smartphone today called the HTC Touch and it shows how these folks are leading the innovation on the Windows Mobile Platform. I've spent some time with the unit and both the device and the initial market strategy for launching are dead on. The phone itself is based on the Elf reference design and as such, it's a really cool small super thin and extremely nice touch screen smartphone. The finish is soft touch and there's a super high carressability factor to this phone. But there's more here than just some cool hardware. A lot more!

The key isn't in the hardware as much as what HTC has done with the software for the Touch. The home screen UI is totally optimized for finger touch and not stylus usage. The UI is gorgeous. Sliding a finger down the display brings up the core menu. Sliding it across the screen pivots to different views allowing access to different functions including media. You can drill down into different functions but once you do, you're getting stock Windows Mobile Apps (which isn't a bad thing, but it's not nearly as nice as what HTC has done).

There are two important aspects of this design. First, Windows Mobile devices are becoming commodity devices (like Windows PCs before them) and HTC is doing the first real job I've seen going beyond what Microsoft offers native to the platform and innovating on top of it. This effort is just the first step in the evolution of their devices. These folks know that doing hardware and software together is how you drive innovation and right now, no one is doing a better job on the Windows Mobile platform.

The second relates to the iPhone and there's going to be some inevitable comparisons to the two devices (they're really totally different, the Touch has also been reported a multi-touch, it isn't in the same way the iPhone is) but it won't matter. You see the iPhone is for the US for now and the Touch is going to be sold just about everywhere but the US for now. This was a smart move for HTC, provide a really cool, local optimized, touch screen device when the iPhone launches in all the markets where you won't be able to get one immediately. This is a great tactical move by HTC and it was a good way to gain some buzz without going head to head directly as others are going to try to do.

Over time, no doubt, Apple will be in those markets even as HTC will make a stronger push in the US and that should be a most interesting moment in time!