One of the greatest features of Windows Phone 7 has got to be the clean, speedy, distinctive UI which manages to offer a different and instantly recognisable experience in a market where competitors are simply copying the Apple iOS. It has been no secret that Microsoft has been VERY protective of the UI and home screen, hoping to avoid the past “mistakes” of allowing OEMs to modify the users experience to the point of being un-useable and unrecognisable. However, HTC wishes to bring its own unique modifications and customisations to the WP7 experience – and believes, over time, Microsoft will allow them to do just that.
“We have a good relationship with Microsoft so we’re continuing to work with them to figure out how to enable a Sense experience without breaking their model. Our expectation is that we will be able to do more over time.”
There have been long hints that HTC wished to bring their Sense UI overlay to WP7, but they have been so far unsuccessful – at least with the first batch of devices. The overlay, which HTC has applied to many of their Windows Mobile and Android devices have been variously praised for its features and criticised for causing performance hits – to the point of a phone having to be soft reset. HTC’s priorities are clearly to have a HTP WP7 device be undeniably recognisable as an “HTC Phone”, whereas Microsoft’s aim (as with all of WP7) is for a device to be instantly recognized as a “Windows Phone.”
So with all that said, what do you PPCGeekers think? Would Sense UI be a vast improvement on WP7, or would allowing OEMs to modify the UI drastically open WP7 up to a future failure? Do you think that HTC could make a UI that is simple, fast, responsive, and not give the device, or Microsoft a bad name? Let us know in the comments below!
Source: wmpoweruser.com
© 2010, JasonFieldz. All rights reserved.
I personally enjoy HTC’s Sense UI. However, I don’t think that the Sense UI is best experienced as an overlay to another operating system. That’s why I think that the Sense UI should be implemented by HTC at the kernel level, with no other host OS between it and the processor/RAM/hardware/etc.
I won’t touch the fake IOS…I mean WP7 until they take the handcuffs off HTC & let them do what they do best, make WM good!
Sorry the tiles suck! no real amount of customization is an insult from what the real possibilities of WM could be. WP7=Fail!
Microsoft will claim to be able to create something just as good as sense this time around and never let HTC do anything they really want. In the end, WP7 will be another fail like it’s already shaping up to be. MS will try to copy everything everybody has already done on their phones only now they want to try to do it not in a better way, but simply in a way that gives them more creative control over software development. Nothing productive or innovative will EVER come out of Windows Phone 7.
I’d love to see a Sense overlay on WP7
I dont think it would be a good idea to allow Sense on the new OS. Personally, Im tired of seeing Sense. I appreciated it when I came over from my blackberry, but seeing it again on Android and again on WP7 is quite enough. Its good to see something new a fresh.
Thanks for bringing 5 WP7 devices out- but stick to the hardware, leave the UI to Windows please. I already disliked how much HTC Sense slowed down my TP2. Don’t even want to think what it could do to WP7. Besides would it not make it harder to tell difference between Android and WP7 then? I think if a person was looking at specs today (and not in the near future) having Sense on WP7 would hurt sales for them if a person wanted more hardware on their phone ex front face camera, storage capacity, and maybe 4G capabilities. WP7 is giving a new experience to using a phone, and cannot show that if it looks like rifts of Sense. IMO like putting a door infront of the screen porch before the actuall door: no sense.
No, it’ll just cause confusion. You’ll see it and be tricked into thinking it was a smartphone (Windows Mobile or Android)(and no, Windows Mobile 7 is NOT a smartphone).
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- 2 Bunny
At this point I could care less what microsoft desides to do, I have been very disappointed with them so far with this wp7 os they want to call revolutionary. In either case, like berry said in the first response, it needs to be done to where the phones performance doesn’t take a hit like it did with previous winmo phones. At the same time though if it wasn’t for htc, winmo would have been dead a very long time ago. I know some people don’t like sense at all and would prefer to use other UI interfaces etc…. but at least htc tried to do something innovative with winmo’s current os. I think microsoft should relax and let htc do their thing and see what possibilities could come from it, but I could guarantee that if they do allow htc to do their thing they will definitely sell more phone.
HTC has a history of leaving Sense quite hackable… If MS is trying to stay away from that, then they shouldnt allow Sense..
Though I think its nice to give the end user another UI alternative – in case they dont like the tiles..
windows on a phone is a dead duck to me anyway. So, what the hell? why not put sense on it? anything’s got to be better than those hideous tiles. YAY!!! a zune with a phone dialer and email!!!! Here’s to hoping that wp7 dies within a year.
@JQuill –
I think your forgetting that Microsoft started the whole smartphone process, and many other companies have built off of them, and their ideas.
Personally I think it would be a good idea to have it because some users are in love with Sense while others are not, but the only thing is if your phone comes with Sense then you should be able to easily remove it if you dont like it without having to hack the phone.
@Merdinh – Still waiting for my evo rom damn it.
Sense is pretty much just a prettier version of WP7 if you ask me. Only instead of tiles Sense uses tabbed screens. But both are not configurable or customizable without a great deal of programming knowledge. Both are pretty inflexible as far as adding anything that isn’t a shortcut to something else.
Something in between would have been much better!
Sort of in the vain of Android Widgets but where you can add tabs (Pivots) to put those widgets on and group them based on function.
I personally like the sense interface because I had a ton of information (including preview of email) without having to hit a tile and load something else up.
it ran like a pig because it was so graphic intensive but that shouldn’t be a problem in this day and age of 1ghz Procs and cheap Ram.
I find the WP7 tiles as ugly as hell! And I don’t like the idea of having to scroll down 4 times to get to the tile I want when with one or two flicks I can go to the Tab that has all my email, texts and voicemail on it. Group my day planner with weather all on one tab and set another tab for things I launch often.
WP7 is as unconfigurable as Sense was but only a quarter as beautiful and I wish MS didn’t insist on dictating to us how we should use our phone and how it should look.
A simple interface that I can configure is all I ever asked for from MS but they keep insisting they know better than I do how I will use my phone.
This is why I am more likely to go Android and Avoid WP7 like the plague!
Unless they come out with WP7 Pro that does what I suggested above!
On the topic though I see MS resisting any attempt to hide their interface.
What is more likely is something more like the old HTC cube that runs as an app on top of it that eats up ram (because you can’t unload the MSUI) and runs like a pig!
@Merdinh – MS didn’t start the smartphone proccess. IBM did with the Simon. Microsoft didn’t really get into it until the Treo was a huge success and HP started adding phones to thier WinCE PDAs
Then they got on the kick of adding phone support to the OS and calling it Window Mobile 6
@Merdinh – I agree. It would be nice to have the flexibility of 2 UI’s. The only thing about Sense is that it’s generic. Once they slap that big flip clock on the front of your home screen it’s gonna ‘feel’ like every other phone with Sense on it and not differentiate it from the the other Sense phones (ie: Android) So I don’t blame MS for being protective because it keeps their phone recognizable as a Windows Phone. The last thing I want to see is a new phone that looks/functions the same as the one I had years ago – BORING!
Besides, I think the WP7 interface is nice, but I can see how you can get bored with it quickly… but that was their goal to begin with right? To not focus on the phone until you need it – “get in and out and back to life”. But when you do use it, it should not only work, but make for a pleasant experience.
I personally would like to see what MS can do with their own interface, but if HTC does get involved, I hope to high heaven they make it something that’s unique to WP7 and nobody else.
I love Sense UI, conceptually speaking. I think it adds a much-needed service to the stock block row icons interface. I know from experience, however, that Sense UI destroyed the performance of Windows Mobile devices (forcing many of us to find alternatives like Spb Mobile Shell), and most of their devices are the same way with Android (EVO being a notable exception). As a result of the lack of performance and real benefit, I say absolutely NOT. Let them add live tiles like everyone else if they need to deck the halls, but absolutely NO overlays.
If, however, they want to work WITH Microsoft to create something truly integrated and fresh, then by all means go for it! That’s an initiative I’d support in a heartbeat.
@Asphyx – FINALLY SOMEONE THAT MAKES SENSE! (NO PUN INTENDED)
@Asphyx – The WinCE PDA’s were rebranded HTC..same for Dell…
Overall though I think HTC is the one who made winmo what it is and killed winmo at the same time…simply put M$ let them do whatever they wanted so they took outdated hardware and placed them in devices (which is understandable because they were a small company back in the day so they couldn’t afford to put in the bleeding edge)…this gave rise to HTC to what they are today and made winmo available to consumers mostly in the US…on the other hand it also killed winmo due to the poor specs.
I can see why HTC would want sense to be on there, unlike its WP7 competitors aka Samsung and LG…HTC does not make their own hardware..in the end road Samsung and LG would easily surpass HTC due to larger profit margins, better stock, and better Hardware..the only front HTC can try to fight in is the Software front which at the moment M$ is not letting them..hence if they don’t do something quick its a loosing game for them.
@gTen – I agree HTC made it a success. But HP and Casio is what brought MSCE into the mainstream. It was the only color PDA available at the time because Palm (the leader) was still LCD based.
I also agree that Sense has always seemed to be an OS replacement since it has done everything possible to obscure the OS at every new release. But they have failed to take that next step and replace the OS entirely. It still runs on top of the MS OS and that is largely why it runs as badly as it does! Fighting for proc time and display rendering while the OS is busy doing 150 other things it probably doesn’t need to do.
My beef with Sense as it is currently is that you can not change the look. Similar to WP7 (since you can’t really change the look of the tiles just move their positions on a single screen.)
WP7 is nothing more than Titanium in square format.
And what was Titanium? The old Today plug in format with fancier graphics around it and scrollable?
And it ran on top of the old today so that setting became useless in favor of another setting you had to look to change what was listed. (WHY WHY WHY?) All this complication for a list based UI.
Sense should either remove the need to run on top of MS and manage the proc usage better or it should be made to be configurable and go the Widget system. Then you can build your screens the way you want, display what you want and it might run smoothly is there wasn’t some OS looking to do it’s own thing running underneath it.
The Lego building block UI approach I’m talking about would allow users to configure screens to their liking and the underlying UI should allow us to add or subtract screens as needed so we can organize the display the way we want.
Android has some of this and I suspect that is what will kill WP7 in a year or two.
The best hope for WP7 is that it can be run on cheap hardware so users who don’t really need a full PDA will get it for it’s kindergarten learning curve. Cause there isn’t much you have to learn when the options are limited and locked in stone!
you wp7 and MS hating idiots need to get a life! wheres itster when u need him. its my understanding that sense wont even take up any amount of resources unless u goto the hub, so wrong again ignorant a$$ android pundits
@eric12341 – Well Eric unless it unloads the MS UI it will take up resources that will reduce the responsiveness because you will be running two user interfaces where only one can be used.
Please refrain from personal insults whether you agree with people or not everyone should be treated with respect. If you feel a person is wrong, correct them and explain why..Insulting someone is not going to convince anyone anything, just result in lash backs.
@Asphyx – its only going to be a hub
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