Paul Briden 26/01/2017 - 4:09pm

An HTC exec has indicated the firm will launch another flagship in 2017 and it may feature Google Assistant

HTC's president of smartphones and connected devices, Chailin Chang has conducted an interview with tech news publication Tbreak, during which he revealed some interesting titbits about the firm's plans for the rest of 2017 and beyond.

According to Chang, HTC's U Ultra smartphone probably isn't the last flagship category device for the OEM to launch this year. We've previously heard from a Forbes report how Samsung's hoarding of the 10nm Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processors it produces on Qualcomm's behalf has created a shortage - a shortage which means  the LG G6 and HTC U Ultra were forced to make do with the Snapdragon 821.

Allegedly, supply of the S835 will increase enough for other OEMs besides Samsung to get in on the action after the Galaxy S8 launches in April. With all that in mind, Chang alluded to HTC launching an S835 powered flagship this year.

"Every time there is a brand new CPU with power that we can leverage, we're always at the forefront doing that. Some people are talking about the timing [of our release] but timing was determined 9 months ago. This is the best CPU out there. When the next flagship CPU comes, HTC will be one of the very first tier doing that."

"When we will look back, it will be clear why HTC introduced [these new phones.] We want to have a couple of months of leadership before the next flagship CPU comes. But that will be in another period of time- not at MWC. Not for us or any other player. I can tell you that for sure. When the new CPU comes, HTC will have another flagship," he added.

Of course he doesn't explicity name-drop the Snapdragon 835, but reading between the lines that's likely what he's referring to. The long and the short of it is HTC wants to release a best-in-class flagship-level phone this year, and the S835 will enable that, but not until HTC can get hands on the chip after April. That would mean at the earliest we could see a launch perhaps in June, but even that feels a little generous as far as schedules are concerned. We could be looking at something towards the latter half of the year, perhaps August, more realistically.

On top of this, Chang talked a bit about a current hot topic - AI Assistants. Interestingly, having recently heard that the LG G6 might be the first Android handset apart from the Pixel series to pack Google's own Google Assistant, HTC might also be looking to implement Google's AI package rather than coming up with its own, as Samsung is doing with Bixby.

With LG having worked closely with Google on the Nexus project, it seems there may be something to do with OEMs who have a closer relationship with the Android creator. HTC, of course, helped create the Pixel series, and according to Chang there will be a deepening of that partnership moving forward; the use of Google Assistant, it seems, might form part of that.

"At some point it will come [to our phones] when its ready. Google wants HTC to do Google Assistant so it can spread to get big data and allow them many things. They want us to incorporate the Assistant in a standard, prominent way. We will use that, but that's on the cloud. Beyond that, there's a lot of device information that can be helpful to a consumer which we want to provide [with our AI]," said Chang.

This is all apparently in spite of HTC's emphasis of its own HTC Sense Companion AI assistant during the launch of the HTC U Ultra.

He added that HTC and Google are "working on multiple thing," and that "there's always a different product."

Read into that what you will!