Photos of a new HTC phone started leaking out a few days ago, and there was one overwhelming response: Good god that thing looks a lot like the iPhone.
The new HTC A9 does, indeed, look a lot like the iPhone. Or rather, the way HTC describes it, the iPhone looks a lot like the new A9. See, HTC was building metal phones way before Apple made it cool. It was the first company to use those antenna lines across the back. HTC would like you to know that even if it doesn't have the marketing budget or presentation cachet that Apple does, it's still an innovative company.
The A9 is HTC's new flagship phone, part of a new lineup (and a new holiday-focused release cycle) for the company. It has a 5-inch, 1080p display, which feels a little small next to other flagship phones but is very comfortable to hold. It's powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 617 processor, which isn't exactly top of the line, but seems to power the device just fine. It has a 13-megapixel camera on the back, and HTC's UltraPixel sensor on the front. It has 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage—Nigel Newby-House, HTC's head of product, called any phone with only 16GB of storage "a cruel joke." He didn't talk about the iPhone at that specific moment, but he talked about the iPhone for most of the rest of his presentation.
Catherine Kim, the phone's lead designer, spoke at length to a collection of journalists about the design chops of the A9. It's a handsome, simple device, with a fast fingerprint reader below the screen, the requisite buttons and ports, and almost nothing else to speak of. It feels far less ornate than the previous One models, with their sloped backs and chromed-out finishes. Kim detailed the flat-stack design of the A9, described how hard it is to engineer a center-mounted rear camera, and outlined the challenge of designing an all-aluminum phone with a cool polished texture on the side. She also talked a lot about the differences between the A9 and the iPhone. There are some—fewer antenna lines!—but not many that normal people will care about.
You know what? It doesn't really matter. "It's like the iPhone, but running Android" is actually quite a sales pitch.
The A9 runs Google's latest version of Android—it's the first non-Nexus phone to do so—and HTC really has gotten out of Marshmallow's way. Newby-House says HTC's beginning the process of scaling back the breadth of its Sense skin. He wants engineers to spend less time on what he calls "hygiene," redesigning menus and icons that don't need to be redesigned, and more time on truly valuable features. For HTC, that's things like BlinkFeed, Zoe, and the new theme store.
This phenomenon has been happening all over the Android landscape as manufacturers realize that Google's software doesn't need much help anymore. More important than funky menus and unique wallpapers is being able to deliver timely software updates, and to support phones for longer than a few months. Phone owners don't want three redundant email clients, or to spend all their time choosing which app to open links in. "We're trying hard to be non-dictatorial," Newby-House says, but also to make using a phone feel like a lot less work.
The A9 is going to be sold by carriers, and unlocked by HTC itself for $399. It'll come in four colors: black, silver, gold, and a deep garnet red.
