HTC Comments on Their Sense UI: "Too Complicated"; Aims to Reduce Bloat

[dgstorm]

HTC is continuing their trend of brave self-reflection. They recently admitted that their Sense UI has become "too complicated". Today, at Mobile World Congress, Kouji Kodera, HTC's chief product officer, said, "From the original Sense up to Sense 3.5 we added too many things. The original concept was that it had to be simple and it had to be easy to use and we had that philosophy, but over time it got cluttered."

This statement comes just before HTC plans to launch their new HTC One Series of phones. Kodera commented,

"There where too many things in there. Even on the home screen we had four or five icons before consumers got a chance to add things themselves. For the HTC One range we have taken it down to Sense 2 again."

From his comments it looks like HTC is serious about getting down to sound, basic business strategies. That's great news to hear, especially for HTC fans. Mr. Kodera further elaborated,

"What we've done right now is a good mixture of keeping Sense and Google's Ice Cream Sandwich element in a good balance. We haven't tried to change everything here. We have kept a lot of the ICS element but still added the Sense flavour on top of it."

Also, Mr. Kodera reiterated HTC's new policy of reduced numbers of smartphones in the market. He said, "These are the key focus products for this year. You will start hearing less from us as we are going to be focusing on less number of products."

Getting back to basics is something many of the manufacturers should take note of. What do you guys think of HTC's new stance on things?

For more info and discussions on the HTC One Series phones, check out our dedicated sister @ HTCOneForum.com.

Source: HTCOneForum.com via Pocket-Lint

[droidxd00d]

This is good news. I always found sense too flashy and complicated. I think this is a step in the right direction.

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[johnomaz]

Or, give an option to not use it IMO.

[zomnomnombie]

Sense is the main reason I never even consider HTC phones. This has the potential to change that depending on its implementation.

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[kodiak799]

I have little to no interest in Sense. Don't much care for it, but it has some good features.

IMO, mfrs should get away from custom UI's and focus on proprietary apps and features only available on their phones. I.e., Sense should be a launcher on steroids, to be installed at your option. They do have a lot of nice widgets, some of which only work because of some deep HTC programming/hacks to access API's most apps can't (even with root, it requires working around special privileges). Another example would be Moto's smart actions. Sure, you can get the same and much, much more with Locale or Tasker but they actually could make it BETTER.

I'd like to get rid of Sense but keep some of their widgets. Unfortunately it's mostly an either/or proposition. This is the difference between truly differentiating your product with features and options vs. cramming down one-size-fits-all on the consumer. It's also a path to profitability as they wouldn't need to crank out handset after handset trying to repackage everything to target different consumer segments.

[trestevenson]

Good on them! HTC seems to have the right idea. Less is more.

[SquireSCA]

I actually like Sense. It is the most polished and best looking launcher IMHO. It does have bloat and extras that you don't need, so maybe having a simple "Sense Control Panel" where you can turn the Sense elements on and off as you see fit would work?

The worst bloat is the crap that VZW puts on there, not HTC....

[macpro88]

I actually like Sense as well, I came from Moto Blur and Sense seems more, elegant I guess, and has a few more features than Blur did. And it looks way more beautiful.

Also, manufacturers NEED to make custom skins. They are almost required by carriers. This is what sets devices apart and what makes one device able to compete with other devices, it created competition, therefore creating a market.

One thing we as the community need to remember, is that we who want pure AOSP and love to hack away at our phones, represent a very very very small population of the general consumer, therefore the big companies don't really care about us (I mean they do, but if we tell them to stop making skins, they sure as heck won't listen).

[JeffDenver]

Or, give an option to not use it IMO.

This is the correct answer.

Though it is encouraging to see HTC come to their SENSEs. Better late than never.

[jroc]

The rezound is my first sense phone...and while it does have extras and eye candy..I prefer what's on my razr more.

I never liked the dock area on sense phones. Seeing what htc plans to do with ics ...this is hopefully a good thing.

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