Posts tagged with 'htc'

I have read a lot about different tablet form factors since the iPad was first announced. Yes, Apple got the iPad almost certainly spot on. The iPad 2 that has been just as, if not more, successfull.

Samsung, as well as HTC, Motorola and almost every other tablet manufacturer has tried to release a variety of tablet sizes to help match Apples incredible output and sales. Hoping that demand catches up with devices on offer, rather than trying to fullfill demand. A dangerous game to play in what I would class as a, admittedly large, niche market.

Habit

Unfortunately, it seems that, especially in Samsung's case, releasing a number of different sizes has become a habit of what might be seen as their core business. The humble TV.

For decades now, television manufacturers have released any number of sets with almost identical features (if not identical), just in different sizes. Walk into any electrical or department store and you now see walls of the things. Gone are the CRT offerings, but now you have plasma, LCD and LED. 22, 32, 36, 42, 46, 47, 48, 50, 51, 55, 58, 59, 60 inch and beyond in terms of diagonal screen size. This is one crowded market space.

Just take a look at Samsung's current D range sets which come in 4, 5, 6, 7 & 8 series configurations, each a slight step above each other, then the different types of technology powering within each series. The range is further widened with the multitude of screen sizes available. On their website, you have the choice of 148 televisions. 148. An insane number of devices to have on offer.

If this is your common approach to selling your devices, it is probably a natural step to take into new spaces. Their mobile and tablet offerings don't offer as many choices, but compared to Apple's solitary device, it looks like a lot.

Apple were not always the experts at just giving users one choice, take the iBook (5 different colour options) as an example. Or the iPod Mini (5 colour options) or iPod Nano (4th and 5th generations had 9 colour options). Admittedly, colour options are less serious than different screen resolutions, but then their iMac and MacBook ranges also give a multitude of options... the difference? Configurability. Whether that's space, screen size, RAM or the type of input devices, Apple makes their devices either personal or configurable. One thing their iPad competitiors do is give too much choice.

I've been posting a lot about Android lately, and this is the last one I intend to post for at least week or so.

As I've documented already, the HTC Wildfire is my phone of choice for my foray into the world of Android.

Having used the phone quite a bit over the last two weeks, I thought that it was time that I shared my thoughts on the phone, Android and the surrounding ecosystem.

First Impressions

The HTC Wildfire is a small phone, both compared to it’s Android siblings and the iPhone. My last phone was extremely small, but that’s what I wanted. A small phone that didn’t take up a crazy amount of real estate in my pocket (in the process destroying the whiskers in my unwashed jeans).

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HTC 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

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After it’s debut a couple of years ago, it has taken me a little while to jump onto the Android bandwagon. Not that I didn't want too, more that I couldn't justify the cost to make it happen.

My phone history

Since early 2006, I’ve been mostly Mac based (exclusively for the last 6 months!), so the jump from OS X to iOS wasn’t a big leap. Having said that, the jump to iOS is so small, it's ridiculous that Apple have been able to make such an easy to use device. During those 4years (and counting), I've been keeping up with Apple's journey and in October 2008, I purchased an iPod Touch. In February 2009, I moved from T-Mobile to O2 and that move bought with it, my first new mobile phone in over 4 years! I went from the brick that is the Nokia N70 to the brand spanking new, Nokia 6600 fold.

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