(Credit: HTC)

A playful post on HTC's Facebook page last week has fans and pundits wondering whether the idea of the company revealing a voice assistant is a well-timed joke or a glimpse into the future.

Moreover, whether it'd be best left a joke if it is just for our amusement after all.

The pic obviously shows a Siri-like voice assistant amusingly chatting with a dog and fetching him the weather at the local dog park. It certainly looks the way a voice-assistant app might on an HTC phone, with the same coloured paper-like strips seen in the HTC messaging app, and a familiar-looking weather icon.

The text posted by HTC along with the image seems to be strongly suggesting that we don't confuse this for a real, upcoming feature, but we're leaning towards believing that this could be on the cards. Posting this without plans to release a similar tool for HTC phones is like saying "wouldn't it be great if we had the same great features on our phones that our competitors have on theirs?"

But the more important question might be whether this is the best way for HTC to improve its products. If sales lag on this year's One series products, will it be because HTC doesn't have a voice assistant? Are there parts of the HTC smartphone experience that could be improved that are more important than voice control? We'd vote for anything around battery life, charging methods and power management, but maybe that's us being painfully boring.

Tell us how you'd spend HTC's R&D money in the comments below.