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Not cool, dude, not cool. The iPhone, that is — at least according to the boss of HTC. He’s hit out at Apple, claiming the iPhone just doesn’t cut it with the kids, while also decrying his fruit-flavoured rival’s recent legal shenanigans.
Martin Fichter, the acting US boss of HTC, blasted the iPhone in front of an assemblage of phone fellas at the Mobile Future Forward conference in Seattle. Fichter chatted to da yoof at his daughter’s college, “And none of them has an iPhone because they told me: ‘My dad has an iPhone’.
“If you look at a college campus, MacBook Airs are cool. iPhones are not that cool anymore”. So that’s some comfort for the boys and girls at Apple then, but not for iPhone owners — the big lame-os.
Fichter was scathing about recent legal battles over patents, in which Apple accuse rivals of stealing its ideas: “A lot of time, money and energy is just wasted based on these patent wars”. He reckons that companies should “protect intellectual property but stop ourselves from wasting all of this energy that should go into putting better technology into people’s hands”.
Google will bolster its position in the patent scrap by buying Motorola. Fichter doesn’t seem worried that Motorola will be privileged by Google when it comes to new phones, preferring to focus on Gogle’s improved legal position:
“It is good for the whole ecosystem… it is a good thing that Google has access to these patents”.
He had another dig at Apple over forthcoming online storage service iCloud:
“We all talk a lot about the cloud… If we change the way we behave and have all of our music not on our phones any more but only in the cloud, I can tell you that networks will have problems.”
Microsoft got away with a backhanded compliment, with Fichter saying Windows Phone has “shortcomings in some areas, so I am quite happy to see how Mango has improved all of that”.
Are you a young person? Is the iPhone cool, or is Apple, like, totes over? Tell us your thoughts in the comments or on our Facebook page.
