HTC’s next generation of phones are on the way, and the early reviews of the HTC One X and HTC One S look pretty good. While the hardware is nice, these will also be the first devices to feature the latest version of HTC’s Sense software.
It looks like HTC has tweaked its skin for Android devices to get out of the way and let Android 4.0 shine in some places, while helping things along in others.
Android Central has posted a detailed walkthrough of the HTC Sense 4.0 experience. One of the biggest changes is that HTC is now using an app launcher that’s much more like the default Android launcher. It can be customized and tweaked, and for the most part the only thing that differentiates it from the stock Android experience are a few optional HTC widgets for weather, time, and other items.
You can customize the wallpaper, lock screen, or even choose from some pre-populated home screens using the “Scenes” option.
Even though HTC is killing its HTCSense.com website (at least temporarily), users can still create an HTC account to save their settings and snag 25GB of free online storage from Dropbox for two years.
HTC includes a few of its own apps. There’s an HTC Sense web browser which is based on Webkit just like the stock Android browser. But it comes with Adobe Flash preloaded, and a few other settings. HTC includes its own music player with Beats Audio integration and a rather slick looking home screen widget. And there are HTC email and text messaging apps, although you can always use the stock Gmail app from Google as well.
You can find more details and photos at Android Central.
