HTC says they have no plans to release an Android Wear smartwatch
There have been rumblings around the internet that HTC may be planning on releasing a new Android Wear smartwatch. Back in September of 2015 we caught word that a device was being worked on with the codename “Halfbeak.” No images of the watch surfaced at that time and it faded from memory until October of last year.
New images surfaced on Weibo that appeared to show an HTC branded smartwatch with a sporty band and the Under Armor logo. Chinese sources claimed this was the Halfbeak smartwatch that HTC had been working on for nearly a year.
In a new interview with Tbreak, HTC President Chialin Chang answered frankly that his company doesn’t have any plans to reveal a smartwatch this year, thanks to the decline of interest in the devices.
“I can tell you that we’re not going to have an Android watch. I don’t thing we’ve nailed it with [the experience of] watches. Android watch is one thing but even Apple as a big brand is declining [in watches.] We are not going to have a watch in the short term.”
If what Chang says is true for his company, it appears the HTC Halfbeak was just a prototype to see what the company could develop when Android Wear was a new concept. That’s disappointing for some who were looking forward to seeing what HTC would do in the smartwatch space, but it’s rather understandable coming from a business perspective when you realize HTC has slowly been releasing less phones each year.