Hi there,
I told my mother to buy a Desire S because it had reasonnable specs at a fair price. However I feel bad about the Sense UI that adds complexity and small fonts. I have an HD2 with a Nexus One ROM and could help her much better if she had the Google 'customization'.
So is there a way to disable/remove sense? There is a known trick for the Desire that does not work for the S. Or is there a rom without Sense? I have not seen any in the dev forum.
Thanks,
Jerome.
You can just download LauncherPro or Gingerbread Launcher or any other launcher app from the market
But if you wanna disable Sense completely I don't think there's rom of pure Gingerbread yet ..
Launcher pro would definitely not do anything to simplify things!
I think something like the titanium roms that were available for winmo
6.5 et al would be good. Stripped down and simpler to use without Sense, also faster imo.
Sent from my HTC Desire S
Well, someone can try to port an android from a non htc phone to this one.....
Thanks for your answers.
Actually I noticed some people compile the gingerbread launcher and post it on the market (there's also the gingerbread keyboard).
I may try that ...
I hate sense. I hate it so much that I am ready to get rid of the phone even though overall it is a great phone. Who in their right mind thinks dragging a circle into a ring is intuitive? Most of my friends cant figure out how to anser my phone and they own other android phones. I have now had this phone for about 6 months. My previous phones were the Nexus One, which was awesome, and had i not dropped and broke the screen I would still be using that phone. T-mobile replaced it with a galaxy s which was a complete POS which led to this phone. I want to root my phone, and install ice cream sandwich (ICS), or at least native android but I do not want sense. Every thread I have found on here all seem to include the sense with ICS. Can someone point me to a ROM that will meet my needs?
To root: [Guide] to Installing S-off, Unlocking, ClockWork, Root, SuperCID & S-on
I'm currently running ARHD 4.1.9 with a no sense add on script.
This link here: [ROM] Android Revolution HD™ 5.0.2 XE | ICS | Sense 3.5 | High Quality & Performance
will direct you to the downloads for a good ICS rom install.
This link: ARHD No Sense Script
Is the add on you flash straight after you flash the rom to remove the sense script (don't reboot CWM or 4EXT flash straight after). It will give you standard android with Go Launcher EX.
It's good as a daily.
Soon enough, CM9 will be available if you're willing to wait. It's AOSP 4.0 and apparently it's progressing nicely. Now, I don't want to ask this, but why buy an HTC if you hate Sense? I know AOSP is out there, but there are better phones with AOSP (GNexus, for example). I mean, half of the Sensations have "WITH HTC SENSE" right on the battery housing.
I don't get it. HTC makes Sense, it's what differentiates HTC from others, why buy an HTC if you hate Sense?
Edit: I want to make it clear, I'm not trying to hate or be a condescending douche, I'm just trying to see a different perspective. I actually don't mind Sense, but it depends how it's done. None of the 3.5 roms run great for me, ARHD 3.x seems to be the only rom that does Sense right. Smooth and fast, lag free.
mattbutsko said:
Soon enough, CM9 will be available if you're willing to wait. It's AOSP 4.0 and apparently it's progressing nicely. Now, I don't want to ask this, but why buy an HTC if you hate Sense? I know AOSP is out there, but there are better phones with AOSP (GNexus, for example). I mean, half of the Sensations have "WITH HTC SENSE" right on the battery housing.
I don't get it. HTC makes Sense, it's what differentiates HTC from others, why buy an HTC if you hate Sense?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Because they make great hardware? Because the Sensation is way better in terms of build quality, materials quality and weight balance than the Galaxy S II(which was the other phone I was considering). I've had several HTCs (Qtek 9100, HTC Diamond, HTC Desire, HTC Sensation) and they are all exceptionally well built.
The Diamond was the first phone where they started bundling some crappy "shell"(early version of Sense, but the name was different) on top of the Windows OS. It was really pointless for me, so I just disabled it(it was much easier back then - Settings > Today > Plugins, and you're ready ) After the Diamond I used an Nokia E51 for a while, and then bought the Desire... a nice phone indeed, but something was not right... After I downloaded and flashed CM6 for the first time I never went back to Sense again, Sense just looks ridiculous to me...
And when I bought the Sensation I used it for around 5 minutes with Sense, just to give it a try, but it was still the same $#!7.
So I, and a lot of other more advanced users, hate Sense. It is what differentiates HTC for the beginner and average user. For the advanced user the competitive advantage of HTC is their materials and build quality. And and HTC makes a great device to run CyanogenMod on(the best Android distro).
PS The Nexus S is a great phone, but I wanted the extra screen real estate and the dual-core CPU. The Galaxy Nexus is even better, but it wasn't available when I bought my Sensation. The HTC Nexus One was available when I bought my Desire, but it was 120 Euro more expensive, and I really dislike capacitive buttons(sadly, they seem to be the standard these days)
So this is basically why someone would buy HTC, and hate Sense
mafiabs said:
Because they make great hardware? Because the Sensation is way better in terms of build quality, materials quality and weight balance than the Galaxy S II(which was the other phone I was considering). I've had several HTCs (Qtek 9100, HTC Diamond, HTC Desire, HTC Sensation) and they are all exceptionally well built.
The Diamond was the first phone where they started bundling some crappy "shell"(early version of Sense, but the name was different) on top of the Windows OS. It was really pointless for me, so I just disabled it(it was much easier back then - Settings > Today > Plugins, and you're ready ) After the Diamond I used an Nokia E51 for a while, and then bought the Desire... a nice phone indeed, but something was not right... After I downloaded and flashed CM6 for the first time I never went back to Sense again, Sense just looks ridiculous to me...
And when I bought the Sensation I used it for around 5 minutes with Sense, just to give it a try, but it was still the same $#!7.
So I, and a lot of other more advanced users, hate Sense. It is what differentiates HTC for the beginner and average user. For the advanced user the competitive advantage of HTC is their materials and build quality. And and HTC makes a great device to run CyanogenMod on(the best Android distro).
PS The Nexus S is a great phone, but I wanted the extra screen real estate and the dual-core CPU. The Galaxy Nexus is even better, but it wasn't available when I bought my Sensation. The HTC Nexus One was available when I bought my Desire, but it was 120 Euro more expensive, and I really dislike capacitive buttons(sadly, they seem to be the standard these days)
So this is basically why someone would buy HTC, and hate Sense
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sense 3.0 is the thing what made me buy HTC Sensation... believe me, even my wife bought a Xperia Arc "after" using my old Desire HD for a while... and she made me sell it at a loss after a weeks time...and got a Sensation XE...
If you hate Sense so much, go for SII ..... but i simply cannot live without Sense ... there is so much in it...
Why should I buy SII when I don't like the hardware? Crappy plastic, horribly light, otherwise a decent phone. I don't mind Sense being loaded when I buy the phone, as long as I can install whatever I want after that. After all I do realize that Sense is a major selling point for HTC. A lot of non-technical users love it, and there is nothing wrong with that. A lot of non-technical users also like Windows, and that's why the PC business is what it is today, but still I wouldn't use it even for a day
Also, when you say that there is so much in Sense you obviously haven't tried CyanogenMod... there are settings and customizations which I(and probably you also) didn't even suspected to exist, while using Sense...
Have a nice day, and use whatever makes more sense to you, after all that's why we use an open system
Not all HTC phones have Sense. I guess you miss my post about having a Nexus One? That is an HTC phone.. No sense, just native Android, and it was flawless. I had 4 samsung galaxys and they all had problems within 4 months and 1 of them lasted 2.5 months before it failed. So basically I had 1 fail after 2 months then every one after that had issues within a few days to a week of getting it in the mail. After reading the reviews of the galaxy nexus, i am not interested. Same cheap feel as the current and previous galaxy and they still have the same problems as the previous versions. I just read a thread about how tapping the galaxy nexus phone causes it to buzz/vibrate. I had the same problem with 2 of my galaxy phones, not to mention none of them worked with GPS even after installing the samsung "fix", and then resorting to changing the server settings ect.. Samsung makes great displays, too bad the only quality part is the screen. This phone was sent to me as a replacement to my galaxy so I really didnt buy it. Other than HTC, at this point there really is no alternative. In my opinion no other manufacturer makes a quality phone so that is why i choose HTC as a manufacturer. I also knew if I didnt like the phone, once rooting was available I could root it and install native android which is why I am here.
To everyone arguing why sense is good: Just because YOU like sense doesn't mean the rest of us do. Why are you even responding in this thread? The name of this thread isnt "Convince me why Sense is good" If you aren't going to provide information relative to the topic, please stop responding. Your responses are starting to turn this thread into an argument and that is not the intention of this thread.
dleach1407 said:
Just because YOU like sense doesn't mean the rest of us do. Why are you even responding in this thread? The name of this thread isnt "Convince me why Sense is good" If you aren't going to provide information relative to the topic, please stop responding. Your responses are starting to turn this thread into an argument and that is not the intention of this thread.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
woah! Sounds like you're going to pop a blood vessel! If you hate sense that much.. You can use the "no-sense" scripts which should do the job for the most part! You wouldn't have to deal with that stupid ring haha, try that. You lose most sense features (which isn't what you're looking for anyway) and it's still good! Some guys have developed roms that they just get rid of sense for. Check those out once you root your phone. I would advise not going for ICS yet or the roms with sense 3.5 until they're stable (That's just my opinion though) Sense 3.0 gives me 1day + of battery life and I'm not even being careful with it. Sense 3.5 gives about 18 hours with less usage and effs with my gps a bit. When you root it, my suggestion is sense 3.0 rom DE-SENSED and go from there!
The guy who posted right after you showed you what to do as well and that's for ICS
For answering the phone, u may either drag the answer call ball into the ring
or just simply drag the ring like unlocking the phone
Sense is HTC's biggest weapon
without sense, HTC may die decades ago
I guess that makes sense. I never really noticed their hardware was that much better, but sounds solid to me.
KAwAtA said:
woah! Sounds like you're going to pop a blood vessel! If you hate sense that much.. You can use the "no-sense" scripts which should do the job for the most part! You wouldn't have to deal with that stupid ring haha, try that. You lose most sense features (which isn't what you're looking for anyway) and it's still good! Some guys have developed roms that they just get rid of sense for. Check those out once you root your phone. I would advise not going for ICS yet or the roms with sense 3.5 until they're stable (That's just my opinion though) Sense 3.0 gives me 1day + of battery life and I'm not even being careful with it. Sense 3.5 gives about 18 hours with less usage and effs with my gps a bit. When you root it, my suggestion is sense 3.0 rom DE-SENSED and go from there!
The guy who posted right after you showed you what to do as well and that's for ICS
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, not mad at all but Im sure you saw only 1 post was on topic, (the one you mentioned and the one below was kind of on topic) the others were people trying to explain why they like sense and basically telling me if I didnt like sense I should have bought a samsung. I have had this phone for 6 months, and gave it a chance (which was stated in the first post). I have used sense for 6 months and I still dont like it. I don't need other peoples opinion on why sense is good, or how their wife made them sell their phone. What does any of that have to do with me rooting my phone and installing ICS, or a rom without sense? None of those replies address the point of this thread. I want this thread to stay on track, not turn into a "I love sense" VS "I hate sense thread". I think its pretty obvious, that is the direction it was headed.
Thank you for the information. I will probably try simply removing sense from the phone first as you suggested. I dont need ICS, I just figured since I was going to root, ICS would be better. I also know ICS is coming soon with OTA. I might simply wait for that, then remove sense. I am assuming the script will work for the OTA since it works to remove sense 3.5 from the current rom floating around.
See how you get on with CM7. It's not ICS and development may have ceased in favour of CM9, but for me it's clean, fast and solid.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1258543
holy crap thats a long thread... 500+ pages? WOW! Seems like a lot of people are using that. Thanks!!!
Everybody throws around the word intuitive. I like the way the lock ring works, and do find it intuitive to me. For others. Not so much. For those who have no desire to figure anything out for themselves, and would rather be told every move to make, then there is an entire company dedicated to doing just that. The name rymes with Snapple
Sent from my HTC Sensation 4G using XDA App
rumors are rumors. there was a thread or post somewhere stating that sense on ics will toned/slimmed down since ics already has most of the features. I believe sense 3.5 was added to ics so they can work out the bugs. Well only time will tell though. Lets just see when it gets release lol.
masondoctorjt said:
Everybody throws around the word intuitive. I like the way the lock ring works, and do find it intuitive to me. For others. Not so much. For those who have no desire to figure anything out for themselves, and would rather be told every move to make, then there is an entire company dedicated to doing just that. The name rymes with Snapple
Sent from my HTC Sensation 4G using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
While I respect your opinion, I have to disagree. But again I dont understand why this is becoming a "Why I like sense" thread...
The rings are not intuitive. It requires you be familiar with the phone (which by definition makes it not intuitive) and as much as I dislike the Iphone and apple products in general, I can pick up any Iphone no matter what generation and use it without issue, and I sure as heck dont have to "figure out" how to answer the phone when it rings. Same goes for any native android phone, but the vast majority of people who pick up my phone have to ask how to unlock it. Having a red decline button and a green answer button requiring them to be pulled into a ring is not intuitive. However, a green button that says answer and a red button that says decline that you press to perform the action stated on the button, I find intuitive. I have no problem answering the phone, or using the phone, but I have found certain things about sense I just dislike as a whole, especially after using native android on my nexus one. The lock/unlock ring, and answer buttons are just the tip of the iceberg. In my opinion, all android phones should have the option to use native android, or the manufacturers GUI and I hope Google implements that.
dleach1407 said:
To everyone arguing why sense is good: Just because YOU like sense doesn't mean the rest of us do. Why are you even responding in this thread? The name of this thread isnt "Convince me why Sense is good" If you aren't going to provide information relative to the topic, please stop responding. Your responses are starting to turn this thread into an argument and that is not the intention of this thread.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Dude. Calm down. I don't particularly like Sense either, but it sure is pretty and fun to play around with for a bit.
The bad news is there's no real 'native' (I assume you mean AOSP) ICS out there yet. There's the 'Voldemort ROM' that we're not allowed to discuss or link to here, but it's not usable yet. If you're really desperate for ICS, you could try out Virtuous Inquisition from the development section. It's the Sense-ICS leak but it's had almost all of Sense stripped out. It's far far better than I was expecting it to be, but it's not without its bugs.
Your best bet would be to just install CyanogenMod 7 and wait for KMobs to release CM9 for us - when it's ready.
Edit: Hah! I didn't even see there was a second page!
Merry Christmas
Merry Christmas and happy new year in advance. I pray to God that our Sensation should get all the upgrades as early as possible like native ics.
Hello guys,
I've just recently got the One S on contract from Netcom and coming from a Samsung phone this really has been a new experience for me all together. But I have a problem. The phone itself works flawlessly and lags nothing compared to the HTC One X - but I really, really, really HATE SENSE.
I just can't seem to get used to it and since I've pretty much done custom flashing on my old Galaxy S since the very start, I just can't wait to replace SENSE as soon as possible - in the mean time, would it be possible to just unlock the device and put a STOCK version of ICS on it? Like one for the One S so that I get to keep stuff such as the HTC browser and maybe the custom Alt+Tab kind of thingy they put on?
Personally would like to build my own custom ROM with some mixed ingredienses but I wouldn't know where to start.
Any ideas? Or do I just have to wait and stick to this in the mean time?
As a stop-gap measure, you could install another launcher. I did this on the HTC Sensation for awhile before we started having either the non-sense options or true AOSP builds like we have now. From my limited experience, this is a flagship device and developers and users and documentarians will show up. The Sensation has a pretty rich community of both sense and AOSP builds now. One cautionary note though. On my Sensation running a modified version of CM9 there are things still being fixed. You may find early versions of ICS will have a variety of issues as developers get things solved. Its particularly hard before source gets released though. Its like peddling a bicycle backwards in a dark tunnel when its raining.
As mentioned above, install Nova launcher for now.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1389071
Sent from my HTC One S using xda premium
ok thanks guys. will have to settle with it for now I guess.
Sent from my HTC One S using XDA
Au Contraire!
I am going with the One S because it runs Sense 4 ( best android overlay)
I was going to go with Samsung Galaxy S2 but my friend showed me his, everything about TouchWiz was unappealing from the large text the stale interface.
AndroidBlizzard said:
Au Contraire!
I am going with the One S because it runs Sense 4 ( best android overlay)
I was going to go with Samsung Galaxy S2 but my friend showed me his, everything about TouchWiz was unappealing from the large text the stale interface.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I guess each one has it's own taste
My gripe with sense is just what you describe as appealing.. the small black text on white background in most of the interface is killing my eye-sight at night. Guess I have been used to the Android 2.3 experience for too long and as much as Sense 4 works wonders - it just not my cup of tea. This could of course be fixed if there was a "black" skin that could be applied. Preferably with as little bright colors as possible (I know, may sound boring but will eventually save a few hours of battery in the long run due to the AMOLED display running "less hot" )
I'm in the same situation as the OP, really enjoyed ICS on my Desire until the display broke (got slammed display first into table... IKEA > HTC)
Anyways here's hoping that I understand these nuggets correctly: "MoDaCo Custom ROMs are based on official ROMs - either shipping or leaked."
"Stock style and Vanilla (ICS) style prebakes will be available as the ROM takes shape."
Source: first post in [ROM] 11 Apr - MoDaCo Custom ROM for the HTC One S - Sense and Vanilla styles in the One S Development forum http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1592126
So hopefully Paulobrien just removes Sense etc from an official ROM. Not sure whats up with the cooking lingo though, maybe there is a dev-chef-lingo dictionary somewhere on XDA!
Also I second your request for where to start learning to build your own ROM! Should post a Q in the noob-friendly thread here.
aureleuz said:
I guess each one has it's own taste
My gripe with sense is just what you describe as appealing.. the small black text on white background in most of the interface is killing my eye-sight at night. Guess I have been used to the Android 2.3 experience for too long and as much as Sense 4 works wonders - it just not my cup of tea. This could of course be fixed if there was a "black" skin that could be applied. Preferably with as little bright colors as possible (I know, may sound boring but will eventually save a few hours of battery in the long run due to the AMOLED display running "less hot" )
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Perhaps you are right
Looking at sense 3.0 interface , the black blackground is weird, sense 4 with white background for settings seems much more natural. I have spent quite some time around my friends who have EVO 3D and Sensation, and I have to admit I will miss the eye catching animations and the easy access carousel function. Of course this is will be my first HTC phone so I can see how people hate the white look of settings. Coming from an iPhone with white settings too, it will be a similar transition for me. Sense just seems to have so much depth and much to explore compared to other Android Overlays. Having ICS along with it just makes the experience much smoother and sweeter.(Pun partially intended )
So... can anybody tell me if the Stock ROMs that have been cooked for the One S recently work good enough to run for production (i.e. HTC camera, launcher, weather widget)
I really would like to feel that AOSP experience again just like on my old Galaxy S. But I don't want to loose any functionality
aureleuz said:
So... can anybody tell me if the Stock ROMs that have been cooked for the One S recently work good enough to run for production (i.e. HTC camera, launcher, weather widget)
I really would like to feel that AOSP experience again just like on my old Galaxy S. But I don't want to loose any functionality
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try Black Dragon 3.8 Rom. Very stable and keeps all functions working.
LikeaG2root said:
Try Black Dragon 3.8 Rom. Very stable and keeps all functions working.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Kthx.
Does that include the HTC ImageSense chip-drivers? I really like the way the camera snaps those pics in a fraction of a second!