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Lately, there is hardly any day where companies have not talked about or showed their interest in emerging technologies like metaverse, virtual reality, blockchain, and more. Global smartphone company HTC on Tuesday launched its first metaverse smartphone — HTC Desire 22 Pro — which will include crypto and NFT functionality. The HTC Desire 22 Pro will enable users to manage their metaverse content, cryptocurrency, and NFTs. Moreover, the Viverse app will enable users to "create their own virtual space" and purchase NFTs in a virtual marketplace. The HTC Desire 22 Pro is at best a mid-range device powered by an octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 695 processor. It comes with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage. The company has been known for its developments in the VR (Virtual Reality) segment in recent years. Solana Labs announced the launch of its Web 3 smartphone Saga, which will be available in 2023, at an event last week in New York City.
According to the first post, from the date of the announcement, there's not a lot of information out there. HTC announced its Viverse brand in March 2022 to mark its ambitions for the metaverse. To that end, the way to go forward for HTC is to launch a varied line of products based on the concepts of web3 and the metaverse itself.
Announced in a press release, "the Metaverse Standards Forum brings together companies and standards organizations to foster alignment on requirements and priorities for metaverse interoperability standards, and accelerate their development and deployment through pragmatic, action-based projects." The organization seeks to enable communication between a wide range of organizations and companies to give the metaverse "real-world interoperability" and help different visions of the metaverse work with each other.
Apple was noticeably missing from the list of members, despite its heavy investment and ongoing work on multiple devices in the augmented-reality and virtual-reality space. Apple has been heavily involved in creating standards in the past, such as HTML5 for the web. It created Thunderbolt with Intel and the "USDZ" file format for three-dimensional content with Pixar and Adobe. Most recently, Apple touted its involvement in developing Matter at WWDC 2022, a new open standard for smart home accessories.
A couple of years ago, HTC attempted something similar when they launched the HTC Exodus and HTC Exodus 1s. These were some of the first smartphones to support blockchain technology and were designed as a digital wallet that would carry Bitcoin and other forms of cryptocurrency.
But because Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies weren't nearly as popular back then as they are now, the niche focus of building a smartphone solely around crypto never really took off.
Now with the metaverse on the horizon, for better or worse, HTC wants to give its lofty smartphone ambitions another shot. HTC's metaverse phone was supposed to debut back in April, but COVID-19 outbreaks in Taiwan forced HTC to delay its reveal.
Not a lot is known about the specifications of the upcoming HTC Viverse, but what we do know is that the new smartphone will be powered by the MediaTek Dimensity 9000 or Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8-series chipset. It will also support HTC Vive AR and VR headsets.
The metaverse concept is already a big deal in the major Asia-Pacific markets. For example, The China Global Television Network reported a metaverse industry committee in China has added 17 corporate members, bringing the tally to 112 in total. The new additions are said to include Inly Media, Beijing Top new Info&Tech, and Beijing Quanshi World Online Network Information, among others.
The China Mobile Communications Association's Metaverse Industry Committee was launched in October 2021 to assess the national industrial policy and strategy for metaverse developments in mobile communications. Its members include China Mobile and China Unicom, according to the Global Times, so telcos are getting in on the act in China. Reuters cited figures by data technology service company Tianyancha, which showed more than 1,000 Chinese companies have filed applications for some 10,000 trademarks related to the metaverse. These include digital platform giants Alibaba and Tencent.
In conclusion, one can say that Apple is not introducing metaverse for iPhone. At least not for iPhone 15.
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