Will HTC Hero upgrade to new Android versions & keep Sense UI

[davomrmac]

Hello All

I was a little bit confused by someone's post about the Hero not including the 'Google experience' apps, but I think that has been cleared up now.

My question is, that if future versions of Android are released, can we just download and install without messing up the Sense UI?

Or, will HTC be quick and tweak the new release for the Hero, so we do not have to be behind the rest of the devices on the market?

[konzern]

well thats a hard question to answer.

if google releases "donut" the hero will not get an OTA update because those releases are only pushed to "with google" branded phones, HTC might tweak the update and have a download link in their website to do a manual update but thats not 100%

[davomrmac]

Thanks for the response. This is what I was concerned about.

Buy the HTC Hero mainly due to Android, but a big selling point is the Sense UI they have overlaid. Then when Donut hits the scene, we download and have to decide 'install and lose the Sense UI, or wait 1/2 months for a tweaked HTC update'?

Surely HTC must have thought of this. I think I will email them for an official response.

[techboi]

Well if we take a look at the HERO, HTC has basically built a UI on top of android and they have even inlcuded things that they have built on there own. They have included an onscreen keyboard diff from what you will see on an HTC magic running cupcake. They have included some things around autocorrect/spelling once again different from cupcake, they have included HTC wigets different from the android wigets and I also read that they made some tweaks to the web browser such as multi-touch etc.

So the question is going to be, when google releases "donut" what will it add/fix and will you even need it on the hero with all the things that HTC has already tweaked? But if donut does bring some signifigant improvements im sure HTC will take it, tweak it to work with the Sense UI and make it available on their website, like they have done with Windows Mobile.

I was under the impression that with the HERO HTC has already included alot of what donut is supposed to come with

[davomrmac]

I have emailed and await their response.

Another question came up. Is the Sense UI installable, so it could be installed as an overlay on any 1.5x or higher version of the Android OS?

[konzern]

I have emailed and await their response.

Another question came up. Is the Sense UI installable, so it could be installed as an overlay on any 1.5x or higher version of the Android OS?

well sense UI is essentially a home replacement app....if you have a rooted phone you can install it but since the g1 has very little RAM it doesnt work properly (it lags)

[davomrmac]

Thanks for the responses.

techboi... you mention HTC have included wigets different from the Android wigets. So does that mean that we will/will not be able to use Android supplied (or standard) wigets on the Hero?

[konzern]

its weird because you can use any widget in the market on the HTC HERO but you cannot use the widgets on the HERO on any other device

[techboi]

Thanks for the responses.

techboi... you mention HTC have included wigets different from the Android wigets. So does that mean that we will/will not be able to use Android supplied (or standard) wigets on the Hero?

The phone will come with both the standard android wigets and the new ones from HTC plus whatever is available in the app market

[ickyfehmleh]

its weird because you can use any widget in the market on the HTC HERO but you cannot use the widgets on the HERO on any other device

Why is this 'weird'? They have backwards compatibility with 1.5/Cupcake but have added new features that are proprietary to the Hero (and possibly all subsequent Android-based HTC devices). It's really no different than, say, OpenHome or dxTop supporting 1.5 widgets in addition to their own proprietary widgets.