Who will be the first manufacturer to update their handsets to Android 4.0 (excluding Nexus devices)? HTC could be first out the gate with a round of ICS upgrades that are expected to appear by the end of March. The first devices to receive these updates will be the Sensation, Sensation 4G, and Sensation XE.

Vodafone Germany has chosen to use a HTC phone to be the first mobile device to launch its shiny new 4G LTE network. The HTC Velocity (can you feel the speed?) for Vodafone may look familiar to those of us in the US market since it’s essentially the HTC Vivid with a different name.

Specs [...]]]>

Vodafone Germany has chosen to use a HTC phone to be the first mobile device to launch its shiny new 4G LTE network. The HTC Velocity (can you feel the speed?) for Vodafone may look familiar to those of us in the US market since it’s essentially the HTC Vivid with a different name.

Specs on the HTC Velocity include a 1.5 GHz dual-core Snapdragon S3 processor, 4.5-inch qHD (960×540) display, 1 GB of RAM, 16 GB of internal storage, 1620 mAh battery, 8 megapixel main camera with auto focus, dual-LED flash, f/2.2, 28mm lens, 1.3 MP front-facing camera and 1080p HD video recording capabilities. The HTC Velocity will launch with Android 2.3 and HTC Sense 3.5, but an update to Android 4.0 should already be in the works since the US variant of the device is expected to get the upgrade within a month or two.

The HTC Velocity features support for Vodafone’s 800/2600MHz LTE network which currently provides coverage for 8.5 million Germans. The actual data speeds for the phone are still unknown, but both the HTC Velocity and Vodafone’s LTE network are rated for 100 Mbps downstream and 50Mbps upstream. Unlike in the US, most of Europe’s LTE network is expected to run on the same 800/2600MHz frequency which means customers will still be able to enjoy 4G speeds even if their carrier does not have LTE coverage in their area. At launch, the HTC Velocity will only be available at Vodafone shops which are currently covered by the netoworks LTE blanket.

No price or release date for the HTC Velocity have been announced, however we suspect Vodafone will want to get the device to market as quickly as possible to give the phone a decent shelf life before it becomes overshadowed by HTC’s new 2012 lineup which will be unveiled in a few short weeks.

In order to combat the company’s recent financial downturn, HTC has announced a new group within the company that will report directly to CEO Peter Chou and will be tasked with developing “key products” for the company. Dubbed “Studio,” the new team will be made up of HTC’s most talented engineers and designers in [...]]]>

In order to combat the company’s recent financial downturn, HTC has announced a new group within the company that will report directly to CEO Peter Chou and will be tasked with developing “key products” for the company. Dubbed “Studio,” the new team will be made up of HTC’s most talented engineers and designers in order to get HTC back in front of the competition and “regain the edge in products.”

It’s unclear if HTC Studio is already operational, but this news does confirm all the recent stories we’ve reported about HTC focusing more on hero phones in 2012.

HTC will also be introducing new products that feature a variety of components sourced from multiple companies in order to give HTC as much flexibility as possible to compete. In the past, HTC has only used chips from Qualcomm to power its Android phones, a strategy which hurt HTC last year as competitors turned to NVIDIA’s Tegra 2 chip to power their high-end devices.

We want to make sure that we do have multiple sources for a single component. So we have, I think, a very good range of suppliers to choose from on CPU, for example.Winston YungHTC

The HTC phones expected to make their debut at Mobile World Congress in just a few weeks will certainly be better than last year’s models, but we’re looking forward to see what HTC’s Studio can dream up later this year. Do you think HTC Studio will be able to turn things around for HTC?

While most consumers are still trying to figure out the differences between Froyo, Gingerbread or Ice Cream Sandwich, Android enthusiasts are praising the latest iteration of Android. Android 4.0 delivered a myriad of new functionalities to Android, including a shiny new user interface (UI). The Android development team at Google spent countless hours making Android’s [...]]]>

While most consumers are still trying to figure out the differences between Froyo, Gingerbread or Ice Cream Sandwich, Android enthusiasts are praising the latest iteration of Android. Android 4.0 delivered a myriad of new functionalities to Android, including a shiny new user interface (UI). The Android development team at Google spent countless hours making Android’s new UI “enchanting, beautiful and seductive.” With such a dramatically improved UI, manufacturers would certainly ditch their custom skins and bring back some unity to Android’s user experience – or would they?

There was certainly hope from many Android enthusiasts that the stock Android UI would be embraced by all. Unfortunately, early leaks and previews from Sony, Samsung and HTC have disappointed many since Android manufacturers seem to be chugging along on the same course as before, spending the majority of their time working on custom skins for Android rather than focusing solely on updating older phones to the latest version of Android. But is this really a bad thing?

If you read through the comments on this site you will notice a recurring theme: our readers are very outspoken about the virtues of the stock Android UI, claiming that “Google finally got it right” and asking “why would manufacturers mess around with perfection” while bullying (down voting) commenters who showed support for HTC Sense, TouchWiz or MotoBLUR (or whatever Motorola is calling it these days).

Personally, I’m a big fan of stock Android and will agree that Google has finally delivered a UI that’s better than most custom skins produced by OEMs. The problem is that Google’s new UI improvements for Android are merely a composite refinement of all the features Motorola, HTC and Samsung have had for quite some time. If you pick apart the new UI piece by piece you will notice that there’s really nothing new. Looking back over the past three years, you’ll see that Google’s UI improvements with every new version of Android include borrowed ideas that were introduced by others.

Below are a few examples of some of the features included in Android 4.0 which were originally pioneered in one or more custom skins produced by Android manufacturers.

Social Media Integration

Facebook and Twitter integration into the contacts application was first introduced by HTC and was adopted a few months later by Motorola in 2009. Both Motorola and HTC served up your contact’s latest status update or a notification of an impending birthday when you called or received a call from one of your contacts. Google introduced a more limited Facebook integration with Android 2.1.

Animated Widgets

When Android first launched, Google only had three widgets and developers had to wait until Android 1.5 before they were able to create their own. Fortunately, HTC jumped into the deep end with HTC Sense and delivered several dozen widgets which also featured animations. The HTC flip clock is probably the most recognizable and mimicked Android widget. Motorola, Samsung, LG and even Huawei introduced animated widgets to their custom versions of Android before Google got around to it with Honeycomb.

Re-sizable Widgets

While HTC kept adding more and more widgets to its Sense library (most of which were simply different sizes of the same widget), Motorola chose to take a different route with the introduction of the DROID X by introducing re-sizable widgets. Users could now choose how large or small they wanted a widget to be. The best part about Motorola’s widget resizing feature is that the widget layout changes depending on which size you choose. As with animated widgets, Google introduced re-sizable widgets in Honeycomb, but the functionality was not nearly as advanced as Motorola’s.

Advanced Lock-screen

With Sense, HTC has always been on the forefront of the customizable lock screen. Early iterations included music controls and details of missed phone calls and text messages. With HTC Sense 3.0, HTC took the customizable lock-screen to a whole new level by giving users a variety of different skins which displayed stock quotes, animated weather, pictures and social media updates from friends. Users were also given the option to choose four different applications which could be launched directly from the lock-screen. The Android team added new features to the lock-screen in Android 4.0 which allow users to launch the dialer or camera applications, but there is still no option to add any user customization.

When it comes to features, many of the custom Android skins produced by OEMs clearly have the Android team beat. But this shouldn’t be surprising to anyone. Motorola and Samsung have been in the mobile phone business for decades and one of HTC’s biggest accomplishments before Android came along was adding a custom UI on top of Windows Mobile which finally made the OS usable for everyday consumers.

My assumption is that there is fear among Android enthusiasts that manufacturers will simply take Android 4.0 and all its new features and cover it up with their own UI without adding any new functionality on top of it. While I can’t guarantee that every custom skin will look nicer than what the Android team has whipped up, the majority of new phones running Android 4.0 with a custom skin will have all the base features with additional features which give users more control and an enhanced experience.

The reason Android is successful isn’t because Google is doing all the work. The leading manufacturers take Google’s base code and add their own tweaks to differentiate their products from the competition while adding features which Google has not yet dreamed up. If everyone simply took Android 4.0 and loaded it onto their phones, the rapid pace of Android’s innovations would slow to a crawl which might lead to the platform’s demise.

I know there will always be a lot of supporters of stock Android, but I hope those of you who prefer your vanilla UI treatment can learn to appreciate custom skins a little more. Google has done an incredible job with the Android 4.0 UI, but lets not forget to give credit to the manufacturers who pioneered many of those same features months or even years before Google wrapped them into the Android fold.

HTC is the latest company with Android ties to announce its fourth quarter 2011 earnings this morning. The Taiwanese handset maker pulled in 102.4 billion Taiwanese dollars (about $3.48 billion USD), with earnings per share (EPS) of 13.06 Taiwanese Dollars ($0.44). Analysts had expected revenue of 144.6 billion Taiwanese dollars, and EPS of 17.03.

Want to catch a glimpse of HTC’s thinnest Android smartphone ahead of Mobile World Congress? A YouTube video just appeared online which reveals the HTC Ville, a device that is rumored to feature a metal unibody design under 8mm thick.

Additional details that have been leaked so far include Android 4.0, Sense 4.0, 4.3-inch qHD [...]]]>

Want to catch a glimpse of HTC’s thinnest Android smartphone ahead of Mobile World Congress? A YouTube video just appeared online which reveals the HTC Ville, a device that is rumored to feature a metal unibody design under 8mm thick.

Additional details that have been leaked so far include Android 4.0, Sense 4.0, 4.3-inch qHD Super AMOLED display, 1.5GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 processor, 8 MP rear camera, VGA front camera, HSPA+, Bluetooh 4.0, and a 1,650 mAh battery.

The dual-core Snapdragon S4 will feature Qualcomm’s new Krait CPU core that offers a 60% performance increase compared to the existing Scorpion micro-architecture found in the Snapdragon S1, S2, and S3. A new Adreno 225 GPU will also provide 50% faster graphics performance.

In the video we can see the performance lags quite a bit, but this is pre-production software. Hopefully HTC can achieve the same smooth performance that we have seen on the Transformer Prime.

HTC is scheduled to hold their MWC press conference on February 26th at 8:30 PM (Barcelona Time) and we will be on-site to check out whatever they announce. Be on the lookout for more details over the coming weeks.

Update: The video has been pulled at the request of HTC. We saved a copy, but don’t want to piss off HTC by re-uploading it. A screen capture can be seen below.

T-Mobile has started spring cleaning a little early this year. TmoNews has unveiled a snapshot of T-Mobile’s inventory system which shows six Android powered phones which have been designated as “Nearing EOL.” The list features phones from LG and HTC which include the HTC myTouch 4G Slide, HTC Sensation 4G, HTC Amaze 4G, LG Doubleplay, [...]]]>

T-Mobile has started spring cleaning a little early this year. TmoNews has unveiled a snapshot of T-Mobile’s inventory system which shows six Android powered phones which have been designated as “Nearing EOL.” The list features phones from LG and HTC which include the HTC myTouch 4G Slide, HTC Sensation 4G, HTC Amaze 4G, LG Doubleplay, LG myTouch and the LG myTouch Q.

Since every carrier deals with their end-of-life devices in different ways, it’s hard to say exactly what this designation truly means. For all we know, T-Mobile has enough inventory in stock for all of these devices to keep orders flowing and store shelves stocked for months. We know that all phones eventually get phased out, but it’s truly surprising to see T-Mobile shifting its focus away from these six phones since most of them have only been on the market since last summer. To put that into perspective, Sprint has only recently retired the HTC EVO 4G which  hit the market more than 18 months ago.

The LG phones listed for retirements were not really anything special, but the HTC Sensation, myTouch 4G Slide and Amaze are still considered flagship phones on T-Mobile’s network. The hope is that T-Mobile will have new flagship devices ready to ship before their current supply of devices is completely depleted.

Do you think there’s a good chance we’ll see the HTC Ville or Edge show up in T-Mobile stores this spring?

We’re still about 30 days out from Mobile World Congress and the unveiling of HTC’s new Android lineup, but the guys over at PocketNow claim to have already gotten a sneak peek at a non-final build of HTC Sense 4.0 which will be running on top of Android 4.0 for the HTC Ville and Supreme. [...]]]>

We’re still about 30 days out from Mobile World Congress and the unveiling of HTC’s new Android lineup, but the guys over at PocketNow claim to have already gotten a sneak peek at a non-final build of HTC Sense 4.0 which will be running on top of Android 4.0 for the HTC Ville and Supreme. If you think that custom skins are too intrusive, we’re sure you’ll be pleased to hear that HTC Sense 4.0 is a “step in the right direction.”

Since no images of Sense 4.0 are currently available, we can’t tell you if the UI looks much different than current iterations. Here are some of the highlights of the improvements featured in HTC Sense 4.0:

• Landscape support for the home screen
• Bubbly sliders have been replaced with squared buttons
• Sense buttons now feature descriptive text which accompanies the button icon
• Lock screen will be able to display task or to-do lists, favorite contacts for quick dialing and direct access to notification bar
• Updated email client with threaded messages and improved layout
• Smart Sync technology which syncs your email based on your usage habits
• Reader feature in browser strips away ads and other useless web clutter
• Read/Watch Later feature in browser saves content in a widget which can be accessed at a later time (even offline)
• Guest Mode Scene disables phone functionality and access to personal data
• Beats Audio profile updated to work with third party applications
• Full DropBox integration with 50GB of free cloud storage

As we’ve already seen from a few different leaked images, HTC phones will not have on-screen buttons like the Samsung Galaxy Nexus. Instead, HTC will be reducing its configuration of four capacitive buttons down to three buttons which matches the ICS on-screen layout.

Honestly, we can’t wait to get our hands on HTC Sense 4.0 and HTC’s new hardware. Google has done a great job of introducing new features and UI elements in Android 4.0 and we’re hoping that HTC’s latest skin will build off of them while adding additional functionality for the user.

If you want to read more about the new features included in HTC Sense 4.0, we’d suggest you head on over to PocketNow and read about their hands-on experience. Now that people are getting to spend some quality time with HTC’s new software, it’s only a matter of time before images and videos of the new UI hit the web.

Are you excited for HTC Sense 4.0?

Early last month we heard that HTC’s focus for 2012 would be more on quality than quantity. While HTC delivered impressive numbers throughout most of 2011, it became obvious that HTC had spread itself too thin later in the year with the number of different handsets the company pushed out.

Before this news was simply [...]]]>

Early last month we heard that HTC’s focus for 2012 would be more on quality than quantity. While HTC delivered impressive numbers throughout most of 2011, it became obvious that HTC had spread itself too thin later in the year with the number of different handsets the company pushed out.

Before this news was simply a rumor, but we now have some direct quotes from HTC’s lead man in the UK, Phil Roberson, that give us a little more insight into HTC’s plans for 2012. Phil Roberson recently spoke with Mobile Magazine, admitting that HTC will be trimming back on the number of new devices introduced in 2012 to focus more on a ‘hero’ approach.

We have to get back to focusing on what made us great – amazing hardware and a great customer experience. We ended 2011 with far more products than we started out with. We tried to do too much.

So 2012 is about giving our customers something special. We need to make sure we do not go so far down the line that we segment our products by launching lots of different SKUs.Phil RobersonHTC

In 2012, HTC will also be putting tablets on the back burner. Roberson stressed that HTC would not be getting out of the tablet market completely, but HTC does want to make sure that the company’s focus is centered around smartphones.

HTC produced several outstanding handsets in 2011, but the majoroty of our time was spent reporting on phones like the HTC Rhyme, Status, Salsa and many other mid to low-end handsets that didn’t really capture the essence of what we have come to expect from HTC.

Do you think HTC can drown out the noise in 2012 and live up to its “quietly brilliant” slogan again?

According to a new support document for the HTC Rezound which just went live on Verizon’s website, the handset will soon be getting a new software update. I know we’re all eagerly waiting to see which (non-Nexus) handset will be the first to be updated from Gingerbread to Ice Cream Sandwich, but unfortunately this is [...]]]>

According to a new support document for the HTC Rezound which just went live on Verizon’s website, the handset will soon be getting a new software update. I know we’re all eagerly waiting to see which (non-Nexus) handset will be the first to be updated from Gingerbread to Ice Cream Sandwich, but unfortunately this is not the update you are looking for.

The new 2.01.605.11 software build for the HTC Rezound is a minor update intended to fix a few issues with the handst’s various radios and improve the Rezound’s software stability.

As of now, we don’t know how large the update is or when Verizon plans on rolling out the 2.01.605.11 software build to the HTC Rezound. Verizon is typically good at sending out minor software updatres to HTC’s phones just as long as it’s not the HTC Thunderbolt.

Check out the list below to see all the features being addressed in this latest system update for the HTC Rezound or you can read the official support PDF from Verizon’s website.

• Updated signal strength meter to 5 bar Received Signal Strength Indication (RSSI).
• Screen Timeout issues while connected to Wi-Fi have been resolved.
• Resolved issue with Mobile Hotspot data stalling while multiple users are connected.
• Improved audio quality during voice call.
• Reduced forced closures related to the People application.
• Improved device stability reduces continuous reset
• Resolved issue with Task Manager stopping Mail background service