BeUnequaled MagazineHTC Sense usually refers to the user interface on your device and is a bit like a layer of gloss that HTC apply to Android devices. It's actually not that bad. It's quite a decent, yet subtle, set of changes to the default UI. Admittedly, these arent to everyone's tastes and nearly a week into my Android adventure, I'd like to try an Android device without it.
As a result, I searched and messed around and thought it might be useful to document how you can disable and re-enable HTC Sense on your Android device so that you can make the most of it. Having disabled it myself, I've found the phone to be just a little bit faster and more like what I was expecting from Android.
The steps I’ve put together all apply to HTC Sense on a HTC Wildfire which is running Android version 2.1. It's fairly easy to do and you'll find them at the bottom of this article.
Pros
- I found the phone to be a bit faster
- Can always re-enable the HTC Sense UI
- The home button takes you to the home screen you were on
Cons
- You loose the 7 home screens are only left with 3
- Widgets become unavailable
For me, the pros greatly outweighed the cons, so it was a no-brainer. Should you ever need to have 7 home screens, you can always re-enable HTC Sense! Loosing widgets is harder to deal with, but in reality, the ones supplied with HTC Sense are not ones I've used much, if at all.
Steps to disable the HTC Sense UI
Go to Settings > Applications > Manage applications
Find the HTC Sense application, click on it to bring up the app management options. Click on "Clear defaults" which stops HTC Sense running when you try to access the home screens.
Hit the home button and you'll be presented with two options, to run Home or HTC Sense. Give Home a go, and you'll have the default Android view. To change back, just lock and unlock the screen and you'll get the same menu and you can choose HTC Sense.
If you don't want this option every time, just tick the check box underneath theoptions before choosing one of them and then that will become your default.
How to re-enable the HTC Sense UI
Go back into Manage applications and you should see an application called Home and clear the defaults. When you next hit the home button, you'll be presented with the options again, choose HTC Sense and you'll be back to normal. You shouldn't loose any of your layout options, which makes the switch even better!
Help
Should you have any issues, or want a helping hand, please leave a comment below.
Next steps
I'm looking for a good unlocking solution. I don't mind the unlock pattern method, but the initial lock screen is a bit annoying. Some apps that claim to remedy the situation by giving the phone a better UI don't seem to run on the HTC Wildfire, or at least they're not showing up in the Market. I'll be sure to write highlight any useful apps I find to serve this purpose.
