HTC Sense is a custom user interface designed to run on HTC’s Android phones. The company is preparing a new version of Sense designed to work with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and it’s reportedly called HTC Sense 4.0.

Last week the folks at PocketNow described some of the new features we can expect to see in Sense 4.0, but at the time no pictures or videos were available. But now the folks at HTC Hub have gotten their hands on a pre-release version of the upcoming HTC Ville smartphone running Sense 4.0 — and they’ve posted the first video of the new user interface.

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HTC builds a custom user interface that runs on top of Android phones and tablets. It’s called Sense and it features a custom lock screen, custom widgets, settings menus, and other features. In the early days of Android, HTC Sense provided a little extra polish to an operating system that was rough around the edges.

Now HTC is preparing to launch a new version of Sense that’s designed to run on top of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. If you’re a fan of Sense, you’ll be happy to know that the new software looks an awful lot like HTC Sense for Android 3.2 and earlier… but that means the user interface also hides a lot of what makes Android 4.0 special.

Google designed Android 4.0 to run on both phones and tablets. The company has also managed to provided a consistent look and feel throughoutthe operating system so that you don’t necessarily feel like you’re running a third party app when you fire up the settings menu or built-in chat or email apps.

But custom skins are probably here to stay. HTC isn’t the only company working on a skin for Android 4.0. An early version of Samsung’s new TouchWiz interface for Ice Cream Sandwich was also leaked recently.

If you want to try out the new HTC Sense software you can download a custom ROM from the xda-developers forum. It’s designed to run on the HTC Sensation XE smartphone and it’s based on the leaked software. This is an early build though and the final version of HTC Sense for Android 4.0 may look different.

via Android Central

Google Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich will be the first version of the Android operating system designed to work on both phones and tablets. It features a new user interface that doesn’t rely on physical buttons at all, and support for a wide range of screen sizes and resolutions.

But none of that is going to stop smartphone makers from releasing custom skins to tweak the user experience.

Boy Genius Report has received some information about a new HTC smartphone called the HTC Ville. It’s due out next April and it will feature Google Android 4.0 and HTC Sense 4.0 software.

HTC Sense is designed to run on top of Android, offering a custom app launcher, home screen widgets, and a handful of additional apps. HTC also backs up some of your preferences and data online if you sign in with an HTC Sense account — so HTC smartphone users often wind up using Google and HTC accounts on their devices.

In the early days of Android, HTC earned a reputation for making the operating system prettier and easier to use with its Sense software. But as Android has matured, Sense has earned a reputation as one of the reasons it takes HTC several months to release a software update after Google releases a new version of Android.

There’s no word on what Sense 4.0 will look like, but it will be one of the first custom skins designed to run on Android 4.0. It’s likely that Samsung will also update its TouchWiz software to support Ice Cream Sandwich, and Motorola may also update its Motoblur software.

The HTC Ville will reportedly have a 4.3 inch, qHD Super AMOLED display and a 1.5 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon dual core processor.

HTC Sense is a custom user interface and suite of applications designed to run on top of Android on HTC’s phones and tablets. The company recently rolled out version 3.0 with new high resolution home screen widgets and an unusual lock screen that lets you unlock the device or launch certain apps without first unlocking.

Now a Chinese forum user has posted a video of a new version of Sense which is likely HTC Sense 3.5. It includes new lock screen widgets and other improvements, fancy new animated effects, and support for gestures on the home screen to view alternate screens. You can also add or remove home screens.

The biggest change is that the curved panel at the bottom of previous HTC Sense versions has been replaced with a simpler user interface showing just two buttons: one for launching the phone and one for opening the app drawer.

You an check out the video after the break.

via Droid Life

HTC uses a new lock screen on the HTC Flyer Tablet and HTC Sensation 4G smartphone. There’s a ring at the bottom for the screen that you can pull to unlock your device — but there are also four icons for apps that you can launch by dragging them into that same ring. This lets you launch some apps without first unlocking your device and then finding them on your home screen or app drawer.

Now an independent developer has cloned the new HTC lock screen and brought it to the Android Market as a free app called Agile lock. If you don’t like the ads in the settings menu you can also purchase a paid version for about a buck and a half.

The full version also lets you adjust the font size, style and color and other settings and add widgets to the home screen. But you can use the free or paid versions of Agile lock to choose which icons display on your home screen, set your default music player, or adjust some other settings.

I get the feeling that Agile lock may not be available in the Android Market forever — at least not in its current form. Last year a developer released an app called Fancy Widget that copied the HTC Sense weather and time widget, and he was asked by HTC to remove the app and make some rather dramatic changes to the graphics.

via Android Community

As promised, HTC has opened a developer portal that will allow third party developers to access a range of tools to write apps for HTC’s Android smartphones and tablets. The OpenSense platform includes support for digital pen input for devices such as the HTC Flyer or stereoscopic 3D for the HTC Evo 3D and other 3D devices.

The plan is to allow developers to create apps that integrated with the HTC Sense software that runs on top of Android. So in addition to support for HTC-specific hardware, the OpenSense SDK includes user interface widgets and components that allow developers to make their apps look like other HTC Sense widgets and apps.

Developers can also find kernel source code for most HTC devices at the HTCDev web site.

It looks like the developer portal is also where you’ll go to unlock the bootloader on your HTC phone or tablet once the company rolls out the web-based unlocking tool. There’s currently a “coming soon” placeholder page for bootloader unlocking.

HTC has announced that it’s launching a set of tool that will allow third party developers to write apps that integrate more closely with HTC Sense software. Sense is a suite of apps that run on top of Google Android featuring home screen widgets, lock screen tools, web browser customizations, and more.

The company has opened a new developer portal called HTCdev with more information. There aren’t any developer tools available for download from the site yet, but they should be available in a few weeks.

The end result should be apps that have an HTC Sense look and feel, allowing customers with HTC phones to download apps that feel like they were made for that particular phone. Right now you sort of end up with a hodgepodge of user interfaces on HTC devices since some apps have HTC’s custom look and feel while others look like they were designed for generic Android devices (because they probably were).

It should be interesting to see whether HTC can encourage developers to use its tools to develop Sense-like apps which might look out of place on non-HTC devices though.

via EuroDroid

Google Android 2.3.4 may include video chat capabilities, hackers have discovered a way to install iPad apps on an iPhone, and HTC Sense 3.0 may include a new keyboard that looks an awful lot like Swype. Here’s a roundup of mobile tech news from around the web:

• SocialJogger social networking app ripped from the Acer Iconia Tab
  SocialJogger is a custom social networking app developed for acer tablets. A member of the xda-developers community has posted an installer file that will let you run the app on other Android devices to keep up with your Facebook and Twitter contacts. For a tablet app, it looks pretty great on a smartphone.
• HTC Sensation to feature new HTC Trace keyboard
  The upcoming HTC Sensation will be the first phone to ship with HTC Sense 3.0 software, and one of the hidden goodies is a new keyboard which appears to work much like the Swype keyboard, allowing you to slide your thumb from letter to letter to enter words without lifting it from the screen.
• VEVO music video site now available in the UK
  VEVO offers about 25,000 music videos on its web site and through its mobile apps for Android and iOS. But until this week VEVO was only available in the US. Now UK residents can also use the company’s mobile apps.

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