【Randy Spears Archives】

Update: Friday,Randy Spears Archives Aug. 2, 4:04 p.m.

Our suspicions were correct: ByteDance's smartphone will not come to the United States. The company confirmed the news in a statement to Forbes.

There just aren't enough smartphones in the world, so TikTok's parent company is going to make one.

Yes, you read that right: ByteDance, the company behind the app that's like Vine if the videos were longer and had more copyrighted music, is going to make a smartphone. ByteDance made the announcement on Monday, saying it would partner with Chinese firm Smartisan Technology to produce the phone, per Reuters.

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A ByteDance smartphone has been rumored for months, with the idea being that it would come pre-installed with the company's many popular apps as a selling point.

Amazon tried making a phone once, too. Credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

There didn't seem to be many specifics in ByteDance's announcement. Reuters described Smartisan as a "niche" name in the Chinese smartphone market, so it's not clear what the scale and scope of this project is going to be. For all we know, the TikTok phone might not even come to the United States.

SEE ALSO: Apple's three 2020 iPhones will all reportedly be 5G-ready

For now, all we can do is reminisce about other times internet companies decided to jump into the smartphone market. For instance, Facebook was rumored to be working on a "Facebook phone" several years ago, but the company never ended up making anything in-house. There was a partnership between Facebook and HTC for the HTC First, which failed spectacularly.

Speaking of dumpster fires, Amazon tried making a phone once, too. The Fire Phone launched in 2014 and was discontinued a year later because nobody liked it. The smartphone market is tough, but maybe ByteDance can carve out a niche for itself.

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