How would you change HTC's Sense?

Microsoft's not going to allow HTC to cover Windows Phone 7 Series with its Sense UI overlay (which is going to be an interesting thing to watch in and of itself), but there's no question that the homegrown user interface has made a-many Windows Mobile phones look and feel a whole lot better than stock. Sense is also gaining traction in the Android realm, a sector where it's far more likely to either make a huge impact or be overlooked entirely. So, the question we're posing here today is this: if you were granted an HTC badge for a day, how would you change Sense? Are you satisfied with the quickness? Does anything simply get in the way? Any quirks that you just can't figure out? Any tweaks that you'd love to see made? We aren't always serious when we say that these companies are listening to you, but trust us when we say that design folks from HTC might just give your comments a once over. Here's your chance. Don't screw it up.

[pizzaman Posted Mar 23rd 2010 4:57AM]

I think, reading through all the comments (which i actually did) that many people want a speedy performance, more customizability, and rapid updates to new android versions. HTC could do all that by changing sense into widgets that run on top of the vanilla android.

A lot of people want more/less homescreens, so we should have more choice. But... imho htc should just ask google to make that happen in the next android release. Or perhaps even write the code themselves and then ask google to merge it.

The less htc needs to modify android, the more resources they can invest in making widgets and upgrading their phones to the latest android.

[mmcs Posted Mar 25th 2010 9:02AM]

@pizzaman No they couldn't. Stock Android doesn't allow animations or particular controls to be used on the home screen.

[pizzaman Posted Mar 25th 2010 6:51PM]

@mmcs HTC could still try to get as much as possible of their inventions integrated in Android and try to add as little as necessary to that.

[anyonebutgil Posted Mar 24th 2010 6:32PM]

1) When you reach the left-most screen and swipe to move left again, have it so that it takes you to the right-most screen ie in a big loop. Vice versa, swiping to go right at the right-most screen would take you to the left-most screen. The home button would always take you to the middle screen and there should be an option to turn this off and leave as is.

2) Alphabetize the main 'Settings' menu or in some way better organize it. The way it is now it looks like it was randomly slapped together. From the top it goes... Personalize>>Wireless controls>>Call settings>>Sound & display>>etc. Uhhh, wtf? There is neither rhyme nor reason to how it is currently laid out. Fix this.

3) Cache information about apps in Settings>Applications>Manage applications. When we go to view a little information about what stuff is installed on the phone we get to watch the green swirly 'Computing' for a couple of minutes. What a waste of time for us and computing power for the phone. Just do it once and then any other time a program is CHANGED. Even better, have the phone do it as part of the background process whenever an app gets installed or upgraded.

4) Location aware Scenes. Use gps or towers to change Scenes based on where you are. Make it similar to Locale (which has been horrid since the beta expiration... and $10) but better.

5) There are two huge usability issues that I can spot in the HTC Browser:
5a) Similar to the complaint about not being to store photos in folders in the Albums app (see gripe 6f) there is currently no way to group bookmarks in the Browser. Can we get folders for bookmarks please? Is this an Android-wide issue?
5b) There is no easy way to reach the Browser home page. The easiest way that I have been able to figure is to just open a new browser window and kill off the old one. There is no 'Home' button in the browser like there should be.
I've taken to just using Opera Mini 5 and Dolphin because of these two issues. Blah.

6) Media playback/viewing needs a MAJOR overhaul. I am coming from an iPod touch but even that was far from a perfect experience. HTC media playback/viewing needs:
6a) A better (read: more accurate) method of scrubbing through music and videos
6b) 1/2x, 2x, 4x playback speeds and the ability to jump forward or back a few seconds
6c) Recognition of chapters in video files (Is this even possible?)
6d) Video autorotate in the other direction also. This way the volume rocker can be at the top of the phone and not on the bottom when viewing in landscape mode. This would be nice since in landscape mode adjusting the volume is counterintuitive. Pressing the left side of the rocker actually increases the volume but makes the green volume bar shorter and vice versa. Sometimes confusing.
6e) Ability to show or not show certain picture folders in the Albums app. There are settings currently for ONLY toggling viewing Favorites, All photos, All videos, and All downloads. What if I want to only display Camera shots and videos that I have taken? Well, that is impossible right now. Makes things in the Albums app look very cluttered since some apps dump thumbnails, icons, etc onto the SD card that then show up in Albums as a photo album. Lame.
6f) Allow folders within the main 'Camera shots' folder. Right now, everything is lumped into one big folder for all pictures that I have taken. I would like to make folders within the main Camera shots folder ie "Amusement park," "Birthday," "Baseball game," etc

Built in Sense widgets:
7) The HTC clock widget type 2 (small analog) constantly refreshes itself when coming from being asleep by swinging the hands of the clock into place from the 12 position. Constantly. I wonder if this is a bug or a feature.

8) The Sense messages and mail widgets absolutely MUST have a way to loop around similar to how the weather widget works. In the weather widget, if you get to the last city on your list and swipe to go further it loops back to the first city. Nice! Similarly, if you swipe up at the most recently received message or mail it would be nice to have it take you to the last message or mail. A way to quickly scroll to the top of the message queue or up or down by increments of 5 or 10 would be EXTREMELY useful also. Currently, if I am browsing through my messages using either of the widgets, and for example I get to message #37 there is no way for me to quickly jump to message #12 or message #52 or even message #1, the most recently received message. I had taken to throwing away the widget and then re-adding it to get to the first message quickly which is amazingly clunky. These widgets are nice eye candy but basically unusable.

Phew. Just those few tiny points.

[pizzaman Posted Mar 25th 2010 6:49PM]

I've been playing around with a Hero and a Legend today. For me there are two show-stoppers for sticking with my Touch HD for now:

1. I need to be able to edit word files. Preferrably out-of-the-box.

2. In the calendar in month view i would like to see all my appointments in text (in stead of blocks). This gives me the overview i need when planning new appointments.
Like this: http://www.geekzone.co.nz/images/software/pi5.gif

[melo1984 Posted May 14th 2010 1:29PM]

I love HTC sense, the only thing i would add on the already awsome
weather animation, is a sound for each of the current weather condition.
That would be truly AAAAAwsome""""""""" Let's see apple top that !!!!!!!!!
Melo1984