Metaverse Phone
If nothing else, the Metaverse is an advertising tool with unlimited potential. Since there is no official definition of ‘the Metaverse’ it can mean anything from a 2D avatar to the potentially vast 3D experience that would allow users to wander (and spend) in worlds that do not exist in reality. In the interim the mention of the Metaverse elicits excitement from a select group of technologists, many of whom are involved in the collection of consumer data, and hip retailers who see potential to sell both physical and non-physical products.
That said, we are not surprised to see a tech rag headline “HTC (2498.TT) Launches Metaverse Focused Phone” pop up in relation to HTC’s recently announced Desire 22 Pro smartphone (July release). The phone has a 6.6” LCD display with moderate resolution, based on a Qualcomm (QCOM) Snapdragon 695 (6nm) chipset and an 8 core4 Kryo CPU, along with 4 cameras and a decent size battery that will sell for ~$480. HTC’s promos for the new phone tout it as “Swift, Versatile, Dynamic Desire 22 pro is the phone to carry you into the future. Designed for immersive experiences in a world where the physical digital, and virtual interconnect – and with the capacity to run 2D and 3D content on extended reality (XR) devices. Get ready to add a new dimension to the way you live, work, and play.”
As one reads further into the promo one gets a better understanding of the gist of the promotion as Viverse, HTC’s Metaverse ecosystem, is quickly referenced as where you can use the phone to “‘visit Metaverse communities (in Viverse) using your phones browser, or pair the phone to your HTC Vive Flow VR headset”. While the ad goes further in describing the phone’s ability to provide “‘images, videos, and games in stunning clarity”, and allows the phone’s owner to “enjoy a rich view of the Metaverse even without a VR headset (using Viverse)”, when looking at the ability of the HTC Vive Flow headset to pair with smartphones, one finds that not only are a number of HTC’s smartphones able to pair with the Vive VR headset, but phones from Asus (2357.TT), Honor (pvt), and Huawei (pvt) will also do the trick, making the new phone just one more mid-priced 5G smartphone.
With Meta painting a picture of the Metaverse (their version) through its TV ads and flashy retailer campaigns that are sort of ‘Metaversy’, although mostly 2D, the advertising world is trying to help consumers understand what the Metaverse is, even if they themselves don’t know, as long as there is the potential for spending, either at the business or the consumer level, which makes it even more difficult for the average person to understand what relevance the Metaverse might have to them. That said, it does make the concept, whatever that might be, more familiar to consumers generally, essentially seeding the idea of a new paradigm for consumers sometime in the future. Until there actually is a Metaverse that is easily accessible to the general public and has some intrinsic value, advertisers will use the Metaverse as a way to indicate their products are what would previously have been called ‘futuristic’, ‘leading edge’, or ‘revolutionary’, sort of an advanced ‘lipstick on a pig’ concept. Perhaps one day there will be a true Metaverse (our definition) but until then its just one step above ‘new and improved’ or ‘you can lose 10 lbs. overnight!’ advertising that tries to differentiate what are undifferentiated products.
That said, we are not surprised to see a tech rag headline “HTC (2498.TT) Launches Metaverse Focused Phone” pop up in relation to HTC’s recently announced Desire 22 Pro smartphone (July release). The phone has a 6.6” LCD display with moderate resolution, based on a Qualcomm (QCOM) Snapdragon 695 (6nm) chipset and an 8 core4 Kryo CPU, along with 4 cameras and a decent size battery that will sell for ~$480. HTC’s promos for the new phone tout it as “Swift, Versatile, Dynamic Desire 22 pro is the phone to carry you into the future. Designed for immersive experiences in a world where the physical digital, and virtual interconnect – and with the capacity to run 2D and 3D content on extended reality (XR) devices. Get ready to add a new dimension to the way you live, work, and play.”
As one reads further into the promo one gets a better understanding of the gist of the promotion as Viverse, HTC’s Metaverse ecosystem, is quickly referenced as where you can use the phone to “‘visit Metaverse communities (in Viverse) using your phones browser, or pair the phone to your HTC Vive Flow VR headset”. While the ad goes further in describing the phone’s ability to provide “‘images, videos, and games in stunning clarity”, and allows the phone’s owner to “enjoy a rich view of the Metaverse even without a VR headset (using Viverse)”, when looking at the ability of the HTC Vive Flow headset to pair with smartphones, one finds that not only are a number of HTC’s smartphones able to pair with the Vive VR headset, but phones from Asus (2357.TT), Honor (pvt), and Huawei (pvt) will also do the trick, making the new phone just one more mid-priced 5G smartphone.
With Meta painting a picture of the Metaverse (their version) through its TV ads and flashy retailer campaigns that are sort of ‘Metaversy’, although mostly 2D, the advertising world is trying to help consumers understand what the Metaverse is, even if they themselves don’t know, as long as there is the potential for spending, either at the business or the consumer level, which makes it even more difficult for the average person to understand what relevance the Metaverse might have to them. That said, it does make the concept, whatever that might be, more familiar to consumers generally, essentially seeding the idea of a new paradigm for consumers sometime in the future. Until there actually is a Metaverse that is easily accessible to the general public and has some intrinsic value, advertisers will use the Metaverse as a way to indicate their products are what would previously have been called ‘futuristic’, ‘leading edge’, or ‘revolutionary’, sort of an advanced ‘lipstick on a pig’ concept. Perhaps one day there will be a true Metaverse (our definition) but until then its just one step above ‘new and improved’ or ‘you can lose 10 lbs. overnight!’ advertising that tries to differentiate what are undifferentiated products.
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