With the launch of the HTC One comes
the arrival of a new version of Sense,
HTC's user interface, layered on it's
Android phones since the HTC Hero
back in 2009.
HTC Sense 5 arrives with Android 4.1
Jelly Bean on the HTC One. At the
moment we don't know exactly what
the plans are for rolling-out Sense 5 to
existing HTC devices like the HTC One
X, but from what we've seen, it would
be very welcome.
We've seen HTC Sense 5 on the HTC
One before its launch and at the
launch event itself and here we're
highlighting the new features of HTC
Sense 5 we've discovered, which the
Taiwanese company is hoping will pull
their smartphones into the future.
We will update this feature as we find
out more.
Blink Feed
Blink Feed is an evolution of much of
what HTC has been doing before, a
"new imagination of the homepage", as
Graham Wheeler, director of
commercialisation product
management at HTC, told us. Blink
Feed is designed to be a glance-and-go
method of getting pertinent
information in a flash, hence the
name.
At a basic level Blink Feed is a content
aggregator, drawing from multiple
sources that you define. That might be
your social networks like Facebook, but
you can also tailor the content to you
by selecting sources, with more
than1,500 on offer. Of course you'll
find Pocket-lint in there, as well as
UEFA, ITN, Sky News and more, all
ready to serve you content.
The result is a mosaic of content for
you to browse and select. It's a
connected service, naturally, so you'll
need a data connection to drill down
through content, but it will cache
pictures and headlines so you can stay
abreast of matters important to you.
Blink Feed is your new home page on
the HTC One and Sense 5. If you don't
like Blink Feed you can turn it off, and
you can always swipe to the side to
return to a conventional home page
that you can fill with shortcuts and
widgets, if that's what you want to do.
As Blink Feed draws on the things that
are important to you, it will give your
device that personal look and feel: no
longer will you be looking at the HTC
flip clock, instead you'll be dashing
through pictures or friends, news
stories, TV programmes and more.
Going lean
One of the biggest criticisms of HTC
devices over the past few years is that
HTC Sense sits in the way of the
Android goodness. You're sacrificing
lean raw speed for a repackaged
experience. HTC Sense 5 trims things
down, continuing a move that started
with HTC Sense 4, but this is certainly
the biggest step yet.
There are apps and bloat that have
been carved away as Sense 5 is
stripped back to the essentials. The
focus isn't so much on widgets, the
ubiquitous flip clock isn't blaring 10:08
in your face: instead you're looking at
a minimalist weather clock sitting
above a new headline feature in Blink
Feed.
The widgets are still there if you want
them, but as a feature that's been
synonymous with HTC in the past,
they've taken a backburner. Wheeler,
talking to Pocket-lint, said that HTC
had found may people never changed
the widgets from the default selection
when they took the phone out of the
box.
Swiping away from Blink Feed will still
give you a normal page, where a long
press on the wallpaper will let you
personalise things, dragging widgets
out as you want them, if you want
them.
Launcher, apps tray
The launcher in Sense changed in
version 4, doing away with the
awkward arced arrangement with a
permanent "personalize" button on it,
becoming much more like native
Android. That also meant the
opportunity to change shortcuts, add
folders and have those shortcuts and
folders appear as lockscreen shortcuts.
The same applies here, although app
icons have all been simplified. This is
part of a wider cleaning up of Sense 5,
removing clutter and bloat to make for
a lighter visual experience.
We like that Blink Feed scrolls behind
the launcher, giving it an integrated
feel, rather than looking like a widget
sitting on the home page.
There's been a change in the centre of
the launcher too. The apps tray icon
switches purpose, as it will switch you
from the apps tray to Blink Feed, the
icon changing accordingly.
The idea is to let you back out of an
app and return to the apps menu,
rather than being dumped back on the
home page. That's because the apps
tray works slightly differently, letting
you create folders within the apps
menu itself, so it's no longer just a
huge list of applications at your
disposal.
It makes it much easier to manage
your apps, as well as being able to
change the size of the grid of apps, so
you can fit more, or less, on to the
page.
What's been added, or
removed?
Things like Locations and Footprints
appear to have gone and you no longer
have that awkward situation of hitting
a map link in the calendar and it
opening HTC's alternative mapping
solution: it's straight into Google Maps,
something we've been calling for for
years.
Also stripped out are the hubs of HTC
Sense 4, so the music hub is now gone,
replaced by default with a folder of
music apps.
Coming into focus is the integration of
TV control. With the HTC One
featuring an IR transmitter, there's a
new app to support it. This will present
your channels graphically, so you can
tap what you want to watch and have
the phone switch to that channel.
This new look at TV will also integrate
the HTC Watch app, so you can select
content to watch and send to your TV
via the HTC Media Link HD accessory.
If you watch something, obviously your
phone then knows and the information
can flow through to Blink Feed, so
you'll get an update on your home
screen in advance of the next episode.
On the music front, the music player
will now not only retrieve your album
artwork from Gracenote, but at the tap
of a button will switch to
a visualisation mode, serving up the
lyrics too, so you can sing along.
There's also a new Kid Mode for your
phone, so you can engage this and pass
it over to your children to keep them
quiet while you wait for your lunch to
be served in that snooty restaurant.
We've seen this feature recently on
Windows Phone 8, although haven't
had the chance to explore it in too
much detail.
One feature that's missing, that we'd
really like to see, is hardware toggles.
Many Android devices, such as the
Samsung Galaxy S III, or the Nexus 4
with raw Jelly Bean, has faster access
to hardware controls, so you can
switch on and off things like Bluetooth
or Wi-Fi with a swipe and a tap. With
Sense 5, you still have to access the
settings via the notifications area to
then toggle the hardware on or off,
which seems a longer way around
things.
HTC has also stuck with a skinned
browser. This might mean consistency,
but we don't feel it's as good as the
Chrome browser that's now standard
for Nexus devices. That's probably no
obstacle, as you'll be able to download
and use Chrome at your leisure.
Camera, Zoe Camera
Of course the big push with the new
HTC One is the Ultrapixel camera.
While the hardware is specific to the
new phone, we're sure some of the
features will roll through to other
devices with Sense 5, but we're still to
have this confirmed.
READ: Ultrapixels: How HTC wants
to redefine the smartphone camera
Visually, the camera app looks much
like it did in Sense 4, with buttons for
still or video capture directly, although
there's been a tweak visually as there
has been throughout Sense 5.
New to the billing is a capture mode
called Zoe Camera. This is a clever
feature that will capture information
through the camera whenever the app
is open, so in effect it's always pulling
in video. Because you get dual channel
capture, you can still take stills as you
wish, but Zoe has lofty aims for your
content.
The real beauty of Zoe is what it does
with the content that you consciously
capture and the additional footage that
it collects. Mashing the two together,
Zoe will produce zero-edit movies for
you to share, summarising your
adventures. It does this by creating
around an events engine (an event
might be a day at the beach, for
example).
The results are really impressive,
adding cuts, style and themes, along
with music, to give you a dynamic and
funky "Zoe" to share. It can be pinged
out to HTC's own sharing website
known as Zoe Share, or exported to
the likes of Facebook as a standard
MPEG4.
Diving into the Gallery will serve up
your photos in events, and there are
six different themes on offer for you to
apply, using additional metadata like
maps if you want that included, so
you'll get place titles too.
Summing up
HTC Sense is a much lighter take on
Sense and although HTC Sense 4+
trimmed flab from HTC's UI, Sense 5 is
a crash diet. Overall, HTC Sense 5 feels
like the sort of change we've been
waiting for. It's slick, fast, and we're
impressed with what we've seen so
far.
Of course, we'll bring you a full HTC
One review as the device nears launch,
which is slated for 15 March.
