Database Info

Are Custom Skins Worth it (aka Sense)

<Rant>
Since the release of the htc desire here in the uk I have seen a explosion of my friends buying it/ getting android. Ive gone from knowing one person with a android to 10 in 2 months!
All very well and good but being a htc hero owner for nearly a year now I cannot more and more help think that the Sense/MotoBlur and other skins over the stock android really arent worth it.
This may fall on deaf ears here at xda with such a huge CustomROM development scene but every time google release a new android version, I have less and less reason to root and flash a customROM onto my phone!
Back when android was 1.5/1.6 it was a ugly looking beast which HTC sense did brilliantly to fix. It was the first android phone to make me (and many others) go "wow". Such that is the pace that android and its manufactures travel at, within a couple of months the hero dropped from #1 to #4 of top android phones. The main reason being of course the android pace of upgrades
since 2.x android has looked good, its picked up sense features and really is not that far behind the sense experience (apart from KB).. I could happily live without sense if i was on 2.x and would much prefere to have a update within 2 weeks then 6months that htc(and other companies) seem to provide.
The problem is I now want a incredible or a evo4 but I would prefere to be able to buy it with a Stock Android build that google will support like they do on the Nexus one.
Am I the only one who feels this?
</Rant>

It's a trade-off. With the evo you do have the option to use the stock android launcher though. But it still is up to the rom scene to do most of the work regarding updating the rom. Though HTC has stated that they will have, at least the evo, sense available for with 2.2 before July (I think the unofficial date is June 26 or something).
(OT)
I though the UK only had GSM carriers/towers and didn't know there would be a GSM version of the evo, and I didn't know there would be a GSM incredible(Verizon branded in the US)

I haven't heard or read anything about the HTC EVO or Incredible being produced in GSM versions. HTC have continuously stated that there won't be any GSM models of either phone. As far as I'm aware, anyway.
Do you have any links/sources that say otherwise?

Make sure you take note on the extensive time it takes to update a device with a custom UI. Learn from the eris, which JUST got its first official OTA, and even that was released pretty buggy. Even the Droid took a while, but that's just a Moto issue, and it didn't take near as long as others, as it has had 2 OTA's since it's release. Lets just hope HTC has worked out the kinks in their compilation and distribution of working software.

New to Android, just a question.

Is it possible to put Gingerbread 2.3 software on this phone? If not when will we be able to, etc?

right now, no. not stock 2.3 anyways. people have gotten CyanogenMod 7, which is based on 2.3, to work, but with no sound because it uses the kernel from the Desire HD, which is very similar to this phone. once HTC releases the source code for the kernel, then people can get to work making real custom ROMs for it.

trevxor said:
right now, no. not stock 2.3 anyways. people have gotten CyanogenMod 7, which is based on 2.3, to work, but with no sound because it uses the kernel from the Desire HD, which is very similar to this phone. once HTC releases the source code for the kernel, then people can get to work making real custom ROMs for it.
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Do you think a official update for 2.3 will be for this phone, since it's newer?

honestly, there is no way to tell. the captivate has yet to actually get 2.2, which is what the inspire ships with. i believe my g/f's stock aria is still on 2.1 as well. if i were you, i wouldn't depend on OTA updates, because there's absolutely no guarantee that there will be one. to be honest, i've never had a carrier branded Android phone, and my only other smartphones were iphones, which always get every update, so I'm not sure what it's like to have to wait for a system update.

Google updates?

I always wonder why wouldn't google let us update our phones manually thru the internet like iphones do?
Seriously it makes no sense for us to wait until tmo or htc sends out an OTA update whenever they feel like it! Enough of this BS we should be able to update these phones ourselves like iphone users do thru itunes.
I think they should have this google pc program that updates android devices with the latest OS version specifically optimized for each device, for example a G2 update for gingerbread, a mytouch 3G update for gingerbread etc..
T-Mobile G2 1.42 GHZ

For obvious reasons. What you're suggesting would be fine if everybody was using the official AOSP builds that make up the Google releases. Of course, this isn't the case. Once the manufacturers get their grubby paws on it, the builds are no longer AOSP, they're customised, and only the manufacturers can update their own custom builds.

DirkGently1 said:
For obvious reasons. What you're suggesting would be fine if everybody was using the official AOSP builds that make up the Google releases. Of course, this isn't the case. Once the manufacturers get their grubby paws on it, the builds are no longer AOSP, they're customised, and only the manufacturers can update their own custom builds.
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Wow that ain't cool, we should get the purest version not the customised ones that manufacturers modify, for example the tmo G2 did not have the tethering option that froyo 2.2 was supose to have because like you said tmobile modified it
T-Mobile G2 1.42 GHZ

ICS 4.0 Update Not Until April 2012?

http://www.themobileindian.com/news/3587_Android-4.0-update-to-come-in-April-2012:-Reports
As reports point out, the updates will arrive by 2nd quarter (beginning April) of 2012 and it is again going to be Samsung devices which will get these updates first. The official word from Samsung is that the six devices to get the update first will be Galaxy S II, Galaxy Note, Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus, Galaxy Tab 7.7, Galaxy Tab 8.9 and Galaxy Tab 10.1 and all of these devices except Galaxy Note (which is coming to India on 2nd November) are already available in India.
Samsung has also said that since it had been working closely with Google on ICS, they expected to beat competitors to the market with upgrades for existing devices.
HTC has also publicly announced the plans for the updates, but it is expected to be late to the party as their phones are heavily modified version of Android and therefore will take more time to include their Sense user interface into the new updates. It will be a more uphill task since some of the features that were available only through Sense UI are now part of Android 4.0 by default.
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Wow. That would be very upsetting if it took that long for an official ICS update.
And to think I actually left my device S-on and unrooted in hopes of getting this update before Christmas. Shame on me.
As soon as we get CM7 stable, I'm done with stock. Done with HTC Sense. Done with waiting for HTC and T-Mobile to get us updates (I know I'm late to the party )

Lol you thought we'd have an update this year, that's kind of funny dude. HTC is good with updates, but not that good. And I've been running cm7 since the cm team dropped it on September 11 and its very stable. Just because they call it an alpha doesn't mean it's buggy or laggy.I think it runs very well like the nightlies. But if I were you bud I'd s-off and root because when the galaxy nexus is released, Google will be releasing the source code for ICS and there will be ICS roms asap and cm9. Or just get the galaxy nexus like I'm planning on doing if you want ICS lol but seriously, you'll have ICS soon, it just won't be official.
Sent from my Sensation using XDA App

The moment ICS gets dumped on XDA, it's gonna be a race to see who mmcan get it stable first. A "friendly" competition, if you will. #yearightlol.
Sent from my HTC Sensation

I am confident that we'll have CM9 running on our phones long before HTC deigns to give us their Sensified interpretation of ICS.

I remember the Galaxy S situation last year......
Same phone as NEXUS S , but the updato to Gingerbread (released in mid dicember) is arrived in May

I'm probably not gonna wait around for HTC.
soon as stable ICS rom becomes available from our wonderful developers I'm upgrading.
lot of the Sense features are on ICS anyways.

nory82688 said:
Lol you thought we'd have an update this year, that's kind of funny dude. HTC is good with updates, but not that good. And I've been running cm7 since the cm team dropped it on September 11 and its very stable. Just because they call it an alpha doesn't mean it's buggy or laggy.I think it runs very well like the nightlies. But if I were you bud I'd s-off and root because when the galaxy nexus is released, Google will be releasing the source code for ICS and there will be ICS roms asap and cm9. Or just get the galaxy nexus like I'm planning on doing if you want ICS lol but seriously, you'll have ICS soon, it just won't be official.
Sent from my Sensation using XDA App
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How long does it take to turn source code into a stable ROM? I'm not a programmer or developer so I have no idea lol.
I'm gonna stick with my sensation, but I'm scared to unroot and flash haha.
Sent from my HTC Sensation 4G using XDA App

It will be a more uphill task since some of the features that were available only through Sense UI are now part of Android 4.0 by default.
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Interesting, that may cost HTC some sales if other phones will get similar features to Sense.

we will get offical ICS if apple devcies get iOS 6 !!
htc should just send ICS for sensation..then after 3 months bring Sense 4.0

Based on past experience, HTC won't release an update until a few months after a new flagship device shipped with a new Android version is launched.
So let's say HTC announce a ICS flagship device in late Dec or early Jan, which will be shipped earliest a month after that. Say early Feb. Add two months to it, April sounds plausible.
As soon as ICS source code is released, probably within days you will start seeing custom ICS roms popping up here. Most of which will be crappy and unstable (although everyone will claim "lighting fast! Super stable!" in their thread title). I would say a month after ICS source code being released, quality ROMs will start rolling out.

LPChris47 said:
http://www.themobileindian.com/news/3587_Android-4.0-update-to-come-in-April-2012:-Reports
Wow. That would be very upsetting if it took that long for an official ICS update.
And to think I actually left my device S-on and unrooted in hopes of getting this update before Christmas. Shame on me.
As soon as we get CM7 stable, I'm done with stock. Done with HTC Sense. Done with waiting for HTC and T-Mobile to get us updates (I know I'm late to the party )
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I hate the break the bad news to you, but the Sensation is now officially the "red headed step child" for both HTC and the carriers around the globe. It was intended to be the flagship Android device when it was released last June, but HORRIBLE quality control lead to massive shipments of faulty devices. HTC still won't admit the issue, although the carriers now openly mention it and will even offer you an LG or Samsung device as a replacement no matter how long you have had your Sensation. With the new Nexus device about to ship, and a handful of other ICS devices on the way, HTC is in a world of hurt. They didn't get awarded the contract for the Nexus phone and the Motorola/Google merger is going to crush their bottom line. Let's also not forget about the snooping software HTC "mistakenly" installed on this phone, which they have just started rolling out updates to remove. In summary, the Sensation was intended to be a market leader. Due to multiple internal/external issues at HTC that never happened, and now they (HTC) are trying to play catch up. The other issue is that HTC has newer phones on the market which have pushed the Sensation to the back of the line when it comes to upgrades. The Sensation is caught in the middle of the newer phones who are competing against the newest version of Android. Sure, ICS will likely come out for the Sensation by Spring/Summer, but at that point the phone will be a year old and nobody will care.....

webmaster said:
I hate the break the bad news to you, but the Sensation is now officially the "red headed step child" for both HTC and the carriers around the globe. It was intended to be the flagship Android device when it was released last June, but HORRIBLE quality control lead to massive shipments of faulty devices. HTC still won't admit the issue, although the carriers now openly mention it and will even offer you an LG or Samsung device as a replacement no matter how long you have had your Sensation. With the new Nexus device about to ship, and a handful of other ICS devices on the way, HTC is in a world of hurt. They didn't get awarded the contract for the Nexus phone and the Motorola/Google merger is going to crush their bottom line. Let's also not forget about the snooping software HTC "mistakenly" installed on this phone, which they have just started rolling out updates to remove. In summary, the Sensation was intended to be a market leader. Due to multiple internal/external issues at HTC that never happened, and now they (HTC) are trying to play catch up. The other issue is that HTC has newer phones on the market which have pushed the Sensation to the back of the line when it comes to upgrades. The Sensation is caught in the middle of the newer phones who are competing against the newest version of Android. Sure, ICS will likely come out for the Sensation by Spring/Summer, but at that point the phone will be a year old and nobody will care.....
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Thanks for your insight
Sent from my HTC Sensation 4G using XDA App

lol. nice thoughts! but for some years here in xda, whos still waiting for these "updates" when there are devs that surely be porting this as soon as source comes out? @[email protected]
and to add to that, haven't you learned that HTC is like a brick itself? like the unlocked bootloader they promised? so many people asking them about that and trying to tell them stuff, but they decided to play by their book and it just ended up xda devs coming up with a different way to unlock the bootloader. so, don't trust them, they put some crazy stuff on your phone and won't tell you that they bugged your phone for some unknown reason. thats why there's xda-developers

i dont think it will be that late ,january at the latest we should have something, beta, leak , CM8
Google I/O 2012 is on April 24 and i think they will launch another version of android then

i thought their said the that ics will come to others devices after 2 months its released! well i wont say nothing the fat lady aint sang yet

Im not really worried about the ICS update from HTC. I myself have been lucky and have had ZERO issues with my sensation, but as fast as the quality devs here can roll stuff out we will have 4.0 before too long, and this being a back of the line phone? i dont buy that. It can be considered an entry level dual core phone, but with the custom ROM's and mods available for this thing, it has the ability to blow more powerful phones off the chart.
I must admit im waiting for the Nexus Prime, but until then i'll enjoy the sensation, and probably always will.

webmaster said:
I hate the break the bad news to you, but the Sensation is now officially the "red headed step child" for both HTC and the carriers around the globe. It was intended to be the flagship Android device when it was released last June, but HORRIBLE quality control lead to massive shipments of faulty devices. HTC still won't admit the issue, although the carriers now openly mention it and will even offer you an LG or Samsung device as a replacement no matter how long you have had your Sensation. With the new Nexus device about to ship, and a handful of other ICS devices on the way, HTC is in a world of hurt. They didn't get awarded the contract for the Nexus phone and the Motorola/Google merger is going to crush their bottom line. Let's also not forget about the snooping software HTC "mistakenly" installed on this phone, which they have just started rolling out updates to remove. In summary, the Sensation was intended to be a market leader. Due to multiple internal/external issues at HTC that never happened, and now they (HTC) are trying to play catch up. The other issue is that HTC has newer phones on the market which have pushed the Sensation to the back of the line when it comes to upgrades. The Sensation is caught in the middle of the newer phones who are competing against the newest version of Android. Sure, ICS will likely come out for the Sensation by Spring/Summer, but at that point the phone will be a year old and nobody will care.....
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do you have some kind of source for these claims? I've not heard a peep about this stuff from other users here or any news sites.

They didn't say anything about releasing the source in july right? Hopefully it releases the same time as Galaxy Nexus. I don't see why I would want an OTA when there's a CM9

unfnknblvbl said:
do you have some kind of source for these claims? I've not heard a peep about this stuff from other users here or any news sites.
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http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/08/15/google-to-buy-motorola-mobility/
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1114612
I could provide you countless other links, but in this case Google truly is your friend!

If I'm not mistaken we would have to wait for HTC to release the source for an Android 4.0 compatible kernel to be able to run CM9 on Sensation. Or maybe the devs can patch together an Android 2.x kernel for compatibility? I'm no programmer so I'm not sure what I just said makes any sense... but apache (provides the CM7 kernel for Sensation) said that they based their kernel on source code from HTC, I guess due to the aSMP CPU in Sensation.

4 months since ICS release & Not a single phone updated to ICS

ICS was released on Oct 19th 2011. It is almost 4 months and still not a single phone was officially updated to ICS. The closest one was Nexus S which had an update that was pulled for being too buggy.
Why is it that android phones are so slow to update while WP7 & iOS have all their devices updated in days after a new update is out.
The wide varity of devices cannot be the reason as the team managing a device don't have to worry about other devices. For example, Galaxy S2 team needs to worry about Galaxy S2 and not other hundreds of devices.
Does upgrading in Android world means buying new phone and not software updaye like in iOS & WP7?

Although In part what you are asking makes sense it is in large part a flawed question and premise. I can not speak to windows mobile as I am not terribly familiar so everything going forward is about android and apple.
Yes we are all waiting to see how much each oem can f up ics with their version of android, whether it is tw or sense or blur etc. ics is a major change in how android handles things unlike ios5 which was in reality a very minor update to the system. And it was delayed by about 5 months from their typical release so when it was officially released it was available to most iOS devices true, but delayed all the same.
The delay for ics is caused by the oems thinking they can improve on it and give their own twist. If it was a vanilla update your premise would be accurate. As to the nexus s although the official release was pulled back there are several quality ports across several devices using it as a base

Though the source code was available previously, the first ICS device (the GSM Galaxy Nexus) was not released until mid-November. As mcord11758 mentioned, ICS is a *huge* updated to the Android system and it takes time to get everything coded to work properly.
I also saw some information last night that the 4.0.4 rollout would resume for Nexus S 4G devices today, so take a deep breath and relax

It's all that freedom man! It takes time to add bloatware,spyware and hideous UI "enhancements" you know.

alex2792 said:
It's all that freedom man! It takes time to add bloatware,spyware and hideous UI "enhancements" you know.
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I have an iOS device. All ios5 did was eat my battery faster and do a weak job of copying androids notifications. Not sure what your bragging about

What I have always found funny is why independent devs can get roms out quicker. There was recent interview with one of Motorola's top execs that said the reason for delays was all the different hardware used in all the different phones. I am running jokers çm9 ics on my motorola electrify. An independent dev got it out before motorola with all their resources. They could get updates out a lot quicker if they so chose to.
Sent from my CM9 Motorola Electrify

mcord11758 said:
I have an iOS device. All ios5 did was eat my battery faster and do a weak job of copying androids notifications. Not sure what your bragging about
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Well, at least you didn't have to wait 6-12 months to actually be able to update your device.

cdrice15 said:
What I have always found funny is why independent devs can get roms out quicker. There was recent interview with one of Motorola's top execs that said the reason for delays was all the different hardware used in all the different phones. I am running jokers çm9 ics on my motorola electrify. An independent dev got it out before motorola with all their resources. They could get updates out a lot quicker if they so chose to.
Sent from my CM9 Motorola Electrify
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Independent devs get to release ROMs with a "sorry if it doesn't work, but tough sh*t" disclaimer. OEMs/Carriers have to be able to support the ROMs they ship.

Also have to remember that The CM based roms here use open source drivers that dont use the hardware to the fullest. While OEMs use closed sourced drivers built for the hardware. Once they get the update they have to wait for new drivers to be built to work with the hardware to the fullest.

alex2792 said:
It's all that freedom man! It takes time to add bloatware,spyware and hideous UI "enhancements" you know.
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With each post I'm more convinced your an apple employee but I'll bite and ask what spyware you refer to.
Dave
Sent from my LG P920 using Tapatalk

alex2792 said:
Well, at least you didn't have to wait 6-12 months to actually be able to update your device.
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Wait...are you saying you would rather a quick but flawed update rather than a delayed but more stable one?
Dave
Sent from my LG P920 using Tapatalk

mistermentality said:
With each post I'm more convinced your an apple employee but I'll bite and ask what spyware you refer to.
Dave
Sent from my LG P920 using Tapatalk
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Carrier IQ anyone?

The reason it takes so long is because all the manufacturers have there own UI to make there phones stick out from the others and with major updates like in ICS they have to rewite there UI to work smoothly with ICS.

IamJAX said:
Why is it that android phones are so slow to update while WP7 & iOS have all their devices updated in days after a new update is out.
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I have worked at Microsoft on Windows Phone 7 and on Windows Mobile. Going back pre WP7, updates generally simply didn't get released for phones. Microsoft is trying to improve that, but the software has to go through modification and testing for carriers. I don't think any version was ready for acceptance in less than four months, ever.
I suspect it's worse in Android-land (where my phones live), because at least Microsoft has big teams for their for-profit product. The major manufacturers also have teams on-site at Microsoft, working to do the customizations. And Microsoft controls the hardware more tightly than Android; for WP7's initial release, there were really only two hardware package options (e.g. screen size, resolution, camera, processor, etc.) So less to modify.
And then Moto adds their new Blur incarnation, HTC adds Sense, and so on, each requiring more changes and testing.
So the comparison between WP7 and ICS is off because of profit-driven teams, hardware diversity and software customization that MS doesn't allow.

Idk but isn't this site to get ICS before any update??? Lol
I'm running ICS in my Samsung Captivate and I can promise you ICS will never come to a Captivate ... but guess what I've got it!!!
I can point and laugh at iOS and WP7 for their limited OS and customize my device
Sent from my SGH-I897 using XDA App

To be honest I don't even know why people want ICS.
I was one of the unfortunates to get the update and now am desperately trying to downgrade back to stock 2.3.6 OR even better..load Cyanogen Mod on my phone.
The only good thing about the update is it led me to register and start to poke around this forum!
Bugs in ICS on my Nexus S include:
- Phone won't ring even when it should. It will only vibrate.
- Lags heavily and hangs when pulling up and trying to type a text message.
- Have to write text message most times before inputting contact to send to.
- Runs million processes in the background, thus killing my battery life.
When I upgraded it wouldn't let me sync my contacts and erased over half my names in my contact lists. When I turned on sync, it would continue to delete the names I had recently readded.
Since wiping all data from my phone, it works a bit more like it should and is a bit more snappy, but it still sucks. They need to hurry up and re-release ICS in a workable version, or at least let people roll back their phone to previous version like you could in Gingerbread.
Whatsup with naming their OS after generally crappy dessert items? Someobody in their marketing department is a glutton...

i want to up grade to ics... but i want to learn more first from here...
please give me some advice

SASQ!!!!!!
come on la, use your butt and think....
why android take such a long time to release a update.
because android has just tooo many different model....
while apple only got...umm.....1......
and windows.....ummm....less den android....
so think about it.....

maybe one----huawei Honor(U8860)ANDROID 4.0
the second edition of ICS commercial release

no guidelines, no warranty, no quality