HTC just announced the debut of a customized user-interface designed to run over the sturdy Android OS. Called the HTC Sense, the new overlay will find its way on the upcoming Hero handset and all future Android phones from the manufacturer.
Based on the press release, the Sense sounds like a highly-customizable interface, with plenty of elbow room for personalizing various displays, well beyond what the typical widget-based home screens currently offer. A feature called "Scenes" is supposed to let you create numerous content profiles, allowing you to use your handset differently every time you need to. The UI also appears to borrow from the social networking aspects of webOS, offering a single view for all your contacts' pertinent sources. They also boast of a feature called "Perspectives," which supposedly creates a new method for managing connections between email, contacts, and social media automatically.
Crunch Gear gave their early review of the new overlay, based on the demos at HTC's event in London and had this to say: "Sense does everything WebOS can do but it uses Android, a platform that is already popular with the geekerati and has a great install base." Should Palm start worrying? Probably so.
As we've said, the UI will make its debut with the HTC Hero, a 3.2-inch touchscreen handset that's slated for a European release beginning in July and the US before the end of the year. Phone specs include a 528MHz processor, a 5.0 megapixel camera module, aGPS, digital compass, gravity-sensor, a 3.5mm audio port and microSD expansion. T-Mobile is probably fuming right now. Who will want to buy a MyTouch 3G now, with this thing coming stateside in a few months?
Photo Credit: Crunch Gear
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