HTC's blockchain-powered Exodus smartphone is a risky bet that needs to pay off
In May, HTC first announced that it was working on a blockchain-powered smartphone called the Exodus. The news came as one of the company's more intriguing projects after a poor start to the year. Last year, HTC shipped over 2 million products in Q1. This year, it shipped only 630,000 products in Q1, according to numbers from IDC.
HTC is in pretty poor shape after a round of layoffs last week where the company laid off 1,500 employees in Taiwan in hopes of becoming profitable. Sales in June were down 68 percent, according to the company. Its latest flagship, the U12 Plus, has received largely negative reviews over its odd solid-state buttons and software bugs.
It's a less than stellar time for blockchain, as well. Cryptocurrency prices are low, and last month, bitcoin was tied to price manipulation in a report from researchers at the University of Texas at Austin.
Considering HTC's financial situation, there's a lot at stake with the Exodus phone. Now we have details from HTC's Phil Chen about when we can expect the phone to be released and an estimate on how much it might cost. Although Chen was vague on specifics, he told The Verge that we can expect the phone around the end of this year and we can expect a price announcement by the end of Q3. When I mentioned that the world's first blockchain-powered phone called Finney, created by Sirin Labs, costs $1000, Chen said the price of Exodus would be "comparable."
And it comes with CryptoKitties!
See also: Wikileaks breeds and sells Cryptokitties, gifts them to Trump and Clinton
Previously: HTC Announces a "Blockchain-Powered" Smartphone
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HTC is launching a blockchain-powered phone
Submitted via IRC for SoyCow0245
HTC is developing a new android phone that will be powered by blockchain technology. The phone, named Exodus, will feature a universal wallet and a built-in secure hardware enclave to support cryptocurrencies and decentralized applications.
Source: https://thenextweb.com/hardfork/2018/05/15/htc-blockchain-powered-phone/
Also at The Verge:
To start with, the Exodus phone will have support for bitcoin, ethereum, and other major networks, with more partnerships expected to come later on. HTC envisions a native blockchain network that uses Exodus phones as nodes that support cryptocurrency trading between users. HTC is also reportedly considering allowing people to purchase the Exodus phone with cryptocurrency. No price has been set yet for the phone.
[...] Chen said during the New York City blockchain conference, Consensus 2018, today: "We envision a phone where you hold your own keys, you own your own identity and data, and your phone is the hub."
(Score: 5, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Thursday July 12 2018, @02:14AM (6 children)
"My phone is powered by blockchain!"
"No, your phone is powered with electricity."
"No, you are mistaken. There is no battery in my phone, it has blockchain."
"Lemme see that."
*opens phone to find an enigmatic bundle of something*
"WTF is this?"
"That's blockchain - it provides all the power I need to run my phone!"
(Score: 4, Funny) by Mykl on Thursday July 12 2018, @02:35AM
Or: "Blockchain - it's what phones crave!"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 12 2018, @10:45AM (1 child)
Is blockchain webscale? Does it have the G-B's?
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Thursday July 12 2018, @06:27PM
640 blockchains ought to be enough for any phone.
(Score: 2, Funny) by nitehawk214 on Thursday July 12 2018, @05:02PM (1 child)
Oh yeah, well my phone is powered by buzzwords. It is guaranteed to never run out.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Thursday July 12 2018, @06:36PM
Brb, I need to plug my phone into a CEOs ass.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday July 12 2018, @06:29PM
"No, your phone is powered with electricity."
Yeah, but, like ten times as much! More power!!!
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday July 12 2018, @02:14AM (27 children)
This is stupid and will fail if it ever even gets released.
From TFA:
I would argue that the Pixel is an OK phone, but Google wants a premium price for it, which is why they can't sell it in volume.
HTC has the same problem. They are not awful phones, but massively overpriced.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Arik on Thursday July 12 2018, @02:28AM (22 children)
Being the unhappy owner of one, I can't agree. It's absolutely awful at every level, design, execution, hardware, software. There isn't a single aspect of this thing that isn't deserving of the death penalty. I would be tempted to say that I couldn't imagine anything more awful, but that would be hyperbole. Before this I had another HTC phone, it was just as bad, and before that I had a Samsung, which was EVEN WORSE.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 4, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Thursday July 12 2018, @02:34AM (5 children)
Reminder to self: Never buy a phone that Arik has bought.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 12 2018, @12:00PM (4 children)
Why would you want his used phones?
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday July 12 2018, @04:43PM (3 children)
I'm pretty sure he has a special overlay which constrains every message to one line, to go with the monospace font.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Thursday July 12 2018, @06:25PM (2 children)
https://www.gsmarena.com/sony_ericsson_t200-338.php
(Guess I misremembered, bought it in 2002 not 2001, doesn't change anything else.)
Fits in pocket or hand comfortably, big knobby keys you can easily work by feel, holds a weeks charge with only 700mah battery. That little greyscale screen is part of why. And it easily displays several lines at a time. I could text many times faster from that than any modern android or iphone.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 12 2018, @06:52PM (1 child)
They still make old people phones, dude.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Joe Desertrat on Thursday July 12 2018, @09:01PM
Yeah, but they keep raising the price of landlines.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday July 12 2018, @02:43AM (10 children)
Well, I stand corrected then. I have never actually owned an HTC phone, but have considered them in the past, but they cost more than they're worth (in my view, of course).
As far as Samsung goes, I would never buy one of their current flagship models, because they cost stupid money too, but last years flagship can usually be had for a reasonable price.
I have a Galaxy S7, and it does everything I need in a timely manner if that is any sort of recommendation.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Thursday July 12 2018, @03:01AM (9 children)
Just for fun, let me list a few of the issues:
First thing when you power it on the dang thing demands a google login. There we go, out of box, very first experience, screw you. I bought you I paid for you and you don't need a google login.
There's no source included and even if I had the source what would I compile it with? What kind of crap is this?
It has many times the computing resources of some of my previous PCs, yet none of that is made available to me. It's reserved for the purpose of tracking me, spying on me, annoying me, but there are no provisions for me to make use of it.
Now that's bad enough, but it gets worse. Ok, all the 'smart' stuff is no use to me, fine, at least it's a phone, right? Well, it's an absurdly bad one. Touchscreens are the worst interface yet invented for a computer, I'd rather use punch cards, the damn things are that cumbersome and unreliable. If I wash my hands it doesn't respond at all, if I leave them dirty it's more responsive but still horribly buggy and unreliable. Just placing a call, a task I can do from an old-fashioned phone or from my pc in seconds, can take a minute or more because of this atrocious interface. Or even longer if I'm lights-out of course, in that case you can't use it at all!
THEN, when we get to the end of the call, and I hit the hangup button, well we're right back at it. A 'phone' that cost the better part of a grand new and takes multiple seconds just to hang up. What garbage! I had a phone that was better in nearly every way (and no worse in the rest) back in 2001, and it only cost half as much. It had physical buttons and when I dialed it dialed and when I hit 'hang up' it hung up. Still works great, but no carrier will provide service for that anymore.
I get that they are 'good enough' in some sense for most people but I honestly can't imagine how that could be. They fail virtually every test that I can think of, and the only reason I have one is because I can't get service with anything usable.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 1) by anubi on Thursday July 12 2018, @03:40AM
Do you have any insights on Alcatels? I'm considering that dual mode (GSM/CDMA) one [amazon.com].
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 12 2018, @03:43AM (1 child)
Make a new one, specify that you are a citizen of Elbonia, live in Antarctica.
It is available. Apps are not written by gods, but you have access to Linux underneath Java.
The rest is about HTC. My phone hangs up instantly.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Arik on Thursday July 12 2018, @04:46AM
Doesn't matter, they'll profile me by the phone numbers I call and know who I am in less than a week.
It's the principle of the matter. Refusing to give them any info at all sends a stronger message than submitting false information. Refusing to spend a penny on evil crap engineered from the ground up to betray you and destroy your race sends an even stronger message, and I'll go back to that just as soon as I can get by without mobile phone service.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 3, Touché) by Mykl on Thursday July 12 2018, @04:47AM (2 children)
Wut.
You do realise that touchscreen phones are backlit?
(Score: 2) by Arik on Thursday July 12 2018, @05:12AM (1 child)
Touchscreens are also a horrible choice for this application in particular because of form factor, btw. I'm sure it's possible to use a dialpad, maybe even a full on-screen keyboard, via touch screen, with some degree of ease if it's relatively large. But I don't want a large cellphone, that's bad for so many reasons. And it's just an exercise in masochism to try to type anything on a screen small enough to be reasonable on a cellphone. My current device is a compromise and it sucks on both ends, it's too big to be a phone, and too small to be anything else.
My old cellphone, the one that didn't suck, was about twice as thick but only a little over half as wide. Fit perfectly in my pocket, no worry of breaking it. Could operate it by touch, nice raised keys that I could operate without error or lag in the dark or without taking it out of my pocket. (Which last I *often* did, using a handsfree, that worked great.) And on top of that it could hold a charge for a week.
It wasn't the cheapest phone around but it wasn't the most expensive either. It's just absurd that 17 years later we can't produce anything half as fit for purpose at any price.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday July 12 2018, @05:59AM
Heh, wait until you discover compromises between more than two ends.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday July 12 2018, @04:48PM (2 children)
So ... what about HTC is the problem ?
I just read a list of rambling about touchscreen phones, which is so familiar my dad would have written it if it wasn't in English.
Do you have any specific reason to hate HTC more than you hate Samsung, Apple, or whoever made a phone since 2007 ?
My wife just replaced an HTC with a newer one, and I would really love it if she hated them and didn't spend so much damn time staring at them.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Thursday July 12 2018, @06:15PM (1 child)
Only owning two of them, compared to one Samsung (which I did say was even worse.) Oh and I've had tons of iphones shoved in my hands too. "You hate android, you must try this!"
They all suck. They combine actively customer-hostile software with hardware that is fundamentally unsuited to purpose. The differences are just in which specific insults and annoyances are attached on top of that.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday July 12 2018, @06:41PM
Way upthread:
OP > > [about HTC] They are not awful phones, but massively overpriced.
Arik> Being the unhappy owner of one, I can't agree. It's absolutely awful at every level
You might have needed, at that point, to declare your global hate of touchscreen phones (you're not alone)
The implication of your answer was that HTC deserved more scorn than other manufacturers, which is quite misleading.
(Score: 4, Funny) by takyon on Thursday July 12 2018, @06:01AM
HTC? I thought I was getting a THC phone!
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by pD-brane on Thursday July 12 2018, @11:39AM (3 children)
I have a Fairphone 2, happy with it and expecting to use it for another 5 to 10 yr.
It's my third mobile phone (and I'm 38 yr old); the Fairphone 2 is by far my most expensive (bit over 500 EUR), but that's OK given that I don't buy a new one so often. I should even be able to replace parts.
My point? Don't buy regularly crap. Buy a good phone and keep on to it.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Thursday July 12 2018, @02:53PM (2 children)
5" 1080p touchscreen
Yeah, no, this is just more of the same crap. A 5" touchscreen means it's way too big to carry like a phone, and still way too small for that touch-screen to be a practical interface.
It may be better in comparison but it's still crap.
"Buy a good phone and keep on to it."
I did. Providers refuse to provide for it.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 1) by therainingmonkey on Thursday July 12 2018, @08:53PM (1 child)
What kind of crazy country uses a phone network where consumers can't just put their SIM in whatever phone they choose?
(Score: 2) by Arik on Thursday July 12 2018, @09:00PM
Like I said, they're just wrong at every level. From the size and form of the device to the software and the infrastructure, it's completely inhuman.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by bobthecimmerian on Thursday July 12 2018, @05:22PM (2 children)
I'm not a fan of Google or Samsung, but if you buy a Google Pixel phone or a Samsung Galaxy device you will get security updates for two years or more. That's pretty pathetic, really.
But HTC, along with Motorola, Sony, ZTE, Huawei, Asus, OnePlus, and LG are all worse. You'll be lucky to get a year and a half of security fixes for their flagships and lucky to get any security updates at all from the mid range or lower models. Even Samsung's mid-range and lower phones stop getting updates too damn quickly. Nokia is very late to the Android party but they might make waves because - supposedly - everything in their lineup is guaranteed to get two years of security fixes and operating system upgrades.
I really liked the HTC phone I bought in 2013. But it stopped getting security updates within a year of purchase. Until they fix that, I'll never buy another one.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 12 2018, @08:03PM (1 child)
Sony phones have been great about updates for the past 5 years. They even provide their own AOSP builds and you can unlock the bootloader anytime which is more than I can say for Samsung.
https://developer.sony.com/develop/open-devices/ [sony.com]
(Score: 2) by bobthecimmerian on Friday July 13 2018, @02:44PM
That's interesting. Sony looks better than the worst in this graph but not great: https://img.gadgethacks.com/img/original/08/10/63655338237852/0/636553382378520810.jpg [gadgethacks.com] (taken from https://android.gadgethacks.com/news/report-oneplus-htc-are-worst-us-phones-for-security-updates-2018-0183180/ [gadgethacks.com] )
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Thursday July 12 2018, @09:04PM
For some reason I initially read that as "niche-by-douche".
(Score: 3, Funny) by Arik on Thursday July 12 2018, @02:25AM (1 child)
One potential problem though, how much are blockchains going for? How many watts do you get from burning one blockchain? Do they have different octane ratings?
So many questions this brings up.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 12 2018, @02:39AM
Perhaps somewhere around 10-6 burning libraries of Congress (1 microBLoC).
(Score: 3, Insightful) by sjames on Thursday July 12 2018, @02:45AM (1 child)
I think it's clear that even HTC doesn't know what it means for a phone to be "blockchain powered". I think it has something to do with seeing a shark when you look down.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 12 2018, @03:53AM
And yet some infinitesimally small number of Bling Swingers will happily pop a thousand bucks for it, just to be able to say they have one.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Thursday July 12 2018, @06:34AM
> layoffs, probably in the tech dept.
> blockchain
the illness is called "management", also known as "bad management" because meatbags are fond of pleonasms.
Management is what happens to companies with time. The economic game is rigged by finance, companies make mistakes or are harassed until they end up needing the management provided interface with the system, which means, to suck on banks' nipples. This is the beginning of the end. The huge bonuses are just the tip of the iceberg compared to bad decisions and total ignorance of the product.
Other companies killed by management. Google, Sony, Apple, Nokia, Samsung. Some of them are still in business, but even zombies do move. Does not make them alive.
An exception is Microsoft which was evil since the beginning, and so is management resistant. It's like windows adopting systemd. There would be no change.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by ilPapa on Thursday July 12 2018, @06:39AM (4 children)
[note: the subject line was a joke. See, hipster bros are all about the blockchain and they also vape, so...]
OK, back to business: I refuse to read this article. It sounds stupid and is very unlikely to be of any value to me. But I do have a question for any of you who have already burned up the time to read it. How the fuck is a blockchain supposed to power a smart phone? I really hope it isn't come cute shit where it's not actually powered by blockchain, but pays your bill by mining blockchain while you play Candy Crush.
Some come on, I know at least one of you know what's going on here. Spill.
You are still welcome on my lawn.
(Score: 5, Informative) by takyon on Thursday July 12 2018, @06:53AM (3 children)
Just read this part:
So it's a phone that will act as a Bitcoin/Ethereum wallet. Aka a security risk and something not anywhere near as useful as the contactless Apple Pay or the Android equivalent. And maybe it or another phone will be used to mine cryptocurrency in the future. Oh and it has those Cryptokitties, which I only have heard about because Julian Assange tried to use them to troll and bust through the Wikileaks payment blockade.
It's just as fucked up as your gut reaction told you. I can't even.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 12 2018, @01:45PM (2 children)
In which way is a Bitcoin or Ethereum wallet a security risk?
I mean, I get the risk of losing any money you hold there just by Bitcoin/Ethereum losing its value. But that's just a financial risk, not a security risk (in the sense usually used when referring to devices; of course you may risk your financial security if you put too much money into cryptocurrencies).
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Thursday July 12 2018, @01:56PM (1 child)
Risk of losing the phone, the phone being hacked, etc. leading to loss of cryptocurrency.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Thursday July 12 2018, @08:04PM
Losing your phone by itself is not a security risk. And if it makes you lose your cryptocoin, then you apparently didn't do proper backups, nor did you write down your recovery phrase on paper stored at a secure location (the recovery phras is all that's needed to recreate the wallet).
Your phone getting hacked is of course a problem of security, but unless it's the wallet itself that is used to hack it, there's no added security risk due to the wallet. And if you you're not silly enough to store your savings on the phone, your loss of cryptocurrency should be quite limited anyway.
Your online banking account surely would be a much more attractive target to the phone hackers.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.