Often times when companies announce or even show off a product before it’s ready, it doesn’t actually ever ship. Remember the Nexus Q? Yeah that was shown off at Google I/O 2012, and even given away to the attendees, and never made it to store shelves. Or in this case to UPS to ship to your house. HTC has done the same thing with the HTC Grip. That was their fitness tracker they developed with Under Armor, that was announced at MWC in March alongside the HTC One M9 and HTC Vive. The device was supposed to start shipping in late-Spring. Well Spring came and went with no word on when it was going to launch.
Now that it is the summer, we were wondering where the HTC Grip was. Or perhaps you forgot about it? We wouldn’t blame you if you did. HTC states that it won’t be shipping, and that it has basically been put on a back shelf for a bit. HTC plans to launch a new product portfolio before the end of the year with all kinds of health and fitness products. It almost sounds like they are looking to challenge Fitbit, who arguably owns the fitness tracker market right now. And even has a smart scale to go along with it.
We’re not sure if that means we’ll be seeing a second generation HTC Grip, or if that will be the first generation with a bunch of other products. However, a fitness tracker did pass through the Bluetooth SIG a few days ago with HTC’s branding. So that could be the device that’s being launched later this year. And if it’s hitting Bluetooth certification now, it won’t be long before it’s announced.
HTC has also said that they are planning to launch a new flagship this fall. So we could see all of this announced at IFA in September, which takes place in Berlin. That’s typically where most of the smartphones you’ll see on the store shelves this holiday season, get announced. Fingers crossed that this new Grip actually gets shipped this time around, and that HTC has fixed whatever issues they had that kept them from shipping this one in the first place.