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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HP has announced plans to release webOS as an open source project soon, but while the source code isn’t available yet some folks have already started working to port webOS to run on hardware originally designed to run designed for different operating systems.

WebOS-Internals member Ryan Hope posted a few pictures today of an HTC Evo 3D running a buggy build of webOS 3.0 today. The pictures are actually a few months old, and the phone isn’t really usable with HP’s operating system. But it shows what’s possible even without having access to the source code.

The version of webOS Hope is using was designed for the HP TouchPad tablet, and he picked the Evo 3D smartphone for his project because it feature similar hardware.

You can find a few more photos on Twitter.

via The Verge and PreCentral

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 has announced that it will offer software updates for eight of its latest high-end smartphones early next year. In 2012 you should be able to install Google Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich on the following handsets:

• HTC Vivid
• HTC Sensation
• HTC Sensation XL
• HTC Sensation XE
• HTC Rezound
• HTC Evo 3D
• HCT Evo Design 4G
• HTC Amaze 4G

That covers most of the company’s current top-of-the-line smartphones. HTC will be working with wireless carriers to roll out the software updates, so there’s no guarantee that every user of these phones will get the software update.

Motorola has already confirmed that at least three of that company’s latest phones will receive Ice Cream Sandwich soon as well.

It’s possible that neither company’s phones will look exactly like the screenshots shown above though. HTC tends to modify Android with its own HTC Sense user interface, while Motorola uses its Motoblur customizations.

The first phone to run Android 4.0 will be the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, which is expected to ship sometime this month. Google hasn’t yet released the source code for Ice Cream Sandwich, but the software maker is expected to do so shortly after the latest Nexus phone ships — and at that point phone and tablet makers will be able to start working with the operating system to include it on their own devices.

While it’s likely that HTC, Motorola, and other device makers will not offer Ice Cream Sandwich for older Android phones, I suspect independent developers will build a variety of custom ROMs that will bring at least some elements of ICS to those devices. It usually takes the developers behind the popular CyanogenMod Android software a few months to incorporate a new version of Android into their code after Google releases the source code.

HTC has followed through on its promise to let users unlock the bootloaders of its most recent Android smartphones. Earlier this month the company launched a web-based tool that you could use to unlock the Evo 3D bootloader as well as the European version of the HTC Sensation.

Now we can add the Sensation 4G on T-Mobile in the US as well as Turkish, Arabic, and Bouygues Telecom versions of the phone.

Unlocking the bootloader makes it possible to replace your phone’s firmware with custom ROMs that may offer special features not available in the software that comes with the device. But while HTC is making it easier to unlock a device, the company doesn’t plan to offer support for unlocked phones. If you use the free service to unlock your bootloader you will void your phone’s warranty.

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

The good news is that as promised phone-maker HTC has launched a new web tool that you can use to unlock the bootloader on selected Android smartphones. The bad news is that right now selected smartphones means the European version of the HTC Sensation… and that’s it.

Soon HTC plans to add the HTC Evo 3D and HTC Sensation 4G phones from Sprint and T-Mobile in the US to the list, but for now US customers are going to have to stick with unofficial bootloader unlocking tools.

The bootloader is a program that loads the operating system on your device. By locking the bootloader HTC could tighten security on a smartphone. But by giving users the ability to unlock their own bootloaders, HTC is making it easier for customers to load custom software such as CynaogenMod or other complete operating system replacements onto their phones.

While HTC is making it easier for users to unlock their bootloaders, the company is not officially supporting phones once the bootloader is unlocked. In other words, if you use the HTC tool to unlock your device you’ll void your warranty.

The unlocking process is a little complicated, and requires you to have the Android software development kit installed, Java running, and HTC Sync software.