Leaked HTC Roadmap Reveals 5 Android Handsets and 3 WinMo Stunners

Handset leaks are all part of the mobile marketing plan, we all get very excited, or disheartened when we catch a glimpse of an alleged handset. When a leak hits the big time, for those few days the device in question gets more attention than page 3 of the sun. Sometimes, revelations are taken a step further and we get actual dates, specs and images all at the same time. This leak is of epic proportion, because what we’ve got here is what looks like HTC’s entire Q1 -Q2 2010 roadmap.

First -The Android Generation.

 

As you can see they’ve been split into different sections to optimise market reach. Let’s take a look at the different categories and the handsets (albeit codenamed) that fall within them.

Design / Lifestyle:

• HTC Legend. Spec-wise it’s very similar to the HTC Hero, as is the design. The Legend’s an Android handset with a 3.2″ capacitive touchscreen. Key features include the 5mp camera, GPS, WiFi and 3G. It’ll run on a pretty snappy 600MHz Qualcomm CPU and carries 256MB of RAM. It’s expected to arrive sometime in March 2010. 
• HTC Salsa. The QWERTY option, it’s got a 2.6″ landscape QVGA touchscreen and there’s WiFi, 3G, and GPS onboard. The Salsa has a 3.2mp camera and will be available from June 2010.

Social:

• HTC Tide. This device is heavy on the social networking side of things with integrated Twitter, Facebook, and Microsoft Exchange email. The Tide comes with a 3.2mp snapper and has the usual connectivity options onboard. This will make an appearance around April 2010.
• HTC Buzz. Another handset with socialites in mind. It’s got creativity written all over it with customisable back covers, similar to the Tattoo. It has a 3.2″ screen, and again features all your usual connectivity suspects. We can expect to see this next May.

Performance:

• HTC Bravo. The single shining light in the performance category is the HTC Bravo. Sporting a 3.7″ AMOLED touchscreen, with HD 720p video recording capabilities as well as DivX support, this will be HTC’s multimedia giant. Running on a 1GHz Snapdragon CPU this will leap onto the market in April next year.

 Next - The WinMo Handsets.

 

All of the Windows Mobile Handsets run on V6.5 and all fall under the same title.

Productivity:

• HTC Photon. Sporting the largest screen of the bunch the Photon grabs a sufficient 3.2″. It has a 5mp camera and all the connectivity options we spoke of in the Android section. The Qualcomm MSM7227 comes in at 600MHz and it will be showing us exactly what it can do in April 2010.
• HTC Trophy. This is pretty much identical to the Photon, except it has a slightly smaller screen coming in at 3″. The 5mp camera’s onboard as well as all those connectivity options we are used to. But we’ll have to wait until May 2010 to spot the differences.
• HTC Tera. The odd-one-out so to speak. The only Full QWERTY Slider of the group. There’s a 3megapixel camera to flaunt and again a host of connectivity options. This is another April bloomer.

 

Android Developers Disgruntled with Market

Android is a relative newcomer to the mobile operating system arena, but it is quickly emerging as the dark horse and the most likely contender to challenge the popular Apple iPhone. Google's Android Market has only a fraction of volume of apps in Apple's App Store, but Android Market is still the second place app store.

The growth and success of the app store depends on satisfied developers continuing to create apps for the Android platform, though. Here are some of the key findings from the survey of Android developers:

? 57 percent of developers said they are not satisfied with their profits on Android.

? 90 percent of developers reported individual app downloads of 10,000 or under on Android.

? 52 percent of Android developers' apps were downloaded fewer than 5,000 times.

? 43 percent feel that they would sell more apps if Android used a carrier billing or another simpler billing system.

? 68 percent of those surveyed are somewhat or not likely to put further work into their apps, compared to when they first released their app.

It is never a good sign if the majority of your developers are unhappy, or when nearly 70 percent state that they are more or less giving up on their apps and don't intend to maintain or update them. That doesn't bode well for Android Market.

According to the survey report "82 percent of those surveyed feel that the design of the Android Marketplace makes it difficult for apps to be noticed. Often, apps will be released and quickly buried by other apps, and difficult to find again."

The survey also found that developers are concerned with the fact that there are multiple versions of the Android platform and a wide variety of Android-based devices. "Looking forward to a marketplace with multiple Android devices from several device makers running on multiple carriers, developers are concerned with the challenge of their apps performing consistently. 46 percent of developers surveyed were certain that different versions of Android would make development difficult."

I have two concerns with the survey though. First, Skyhook Wireless only surveyed 30 developers. I don't know how many total developers there are working on Android apps, but I don't think 30 is a large enough sample for the survey results to be accepted as scientific.

My second issue is that I am not sure that these stats are all that concerning. The Apple App Store has more than 100,000 apps available. Apple receives the equivalent of the Android Market in new app submissions each week.

Apple has more than 125,000 developers registered in the Apple iPhone Developer Program. I am fairly sure that you could choose a random sampling of 30 of them, or even 300, or possibly 3,000, and find that many of them are also dissatisfied with the rate at which their apps are being downloaded or the profits they are generating.

Based on revenue the Android Market does have some catching up to do, though. Relative to the ratio of apps available from each app store, Google should be generating about a tenth of the revenue that Apple's App Store pulls in. At approximately $60 million a year though, Google's Android Market is only pulling in about a quarter of that compared with Apple's $2.4 billion.

My take is that Android Market is young. Google has significant room for improvement and it should take some notes from this survey and consider updates to the Android Market--particularly in how apps are categorized and searched, and how app billing is handled.

That said, though, when there are thousands and thousands of apps available, many of them will quickly fall off the radar and only a relative few will achieve significant profit. The survey sampling is too small to give much weight to the results.