HandsetsTablets

[Update: Some Clarification] HTC Sense 3.0 Will Only Support Sensation, EVO 3D & Flyer for Now

39

[Update]: HTC’s chimed back in after these reports spread across the internet like a wildfire. (No pun intended, really.) They’re now saying that elements of HTC Sense 3.0 may come to older and less capable phones, but it’ll be on a device-by-device basis. Meaning hope hasn’t totally been lost, but it still isn’t exactly the most reassuring comment. [Twitter]

We’ve long been hoping for HTC to bring Sense 3.0 to some of its existing devices such as the EVO 4G, the HTC DROID Incredible, and the HTC Inspire 4G, but it looks like that may never end up happening. The news comes from HTC themselves who cite the need for more powerful hardware to handle the customization in Sense 3.0.

It appears you’ll need to get a dual-core phone from HTC to take advantage as they’ll only be supporting the EVO 3D, the newly-announced HTC Sensation, and the HTC Flyer tablet for now. Not a great feeling for those who are either planning on getting or already have a device from HTC’s “S” line of products that were only announced a couple of months ago.

What sets these devices apart from the rest of HTC’s lineup is that all but one have dual-core processors. The HTC Flyer doesn’t, but instead has a single-core Qualcomm chipset clocked 1.5GHz.  HTC’s clearly set a bar for this version of Sense, but if you don’t buy a phone from them that surpasses that bar you might be stuck on 2.1 for a long while. ]via Engadget]

Quentyn Kennemer
The "Google Phone" sounded too awesome to pass up, so I bought a G1. The rest is history. And yes, I know my name isn't Wilson.

Intel Based Honeycomb Tablets Are On The Way

Previous article

NVIDIA Clears Up Tegra Confusion – No Devices Left Behind [PR Blunders]

Next article

You may also like

39 Comments

  1. Might be stuck on 2.2 you mean? Also this is a load of shit. I can’t believe HTC is pulling this. I’m glad there’s choices with Android. Maybe I’ll just move to Samsung at least I know I won’t get updates but I’ll have the best hardware.

    1. No he means 2.1 thats the sense version not andriod

  2. Fuck you HTC, i just bought a Desire HD and this is what you have for us?
    Then stop releasing a phone every fucking week.

  3. @Gohause no I meant Sense 2.1 vs Sense 3.0.

    1. Or right right I got ya now. Still though you must agree that what HTC is pulling is ridiculous. Now once again I must rely on ROMing to get the most out of my HTC phone.

  4. HTC and Android skins FTW

    1. Seriously all this stuff is almost enough to make me wanna switch to WebOS or WP7. Never Apple

      1. I understand this type of stuff has been happening since the first skinned Android phone came out the European HTC Hero in 2009, it took them 14 months to update that phone. I’ve always stuck with stock Google phones since the G1 days because of this crap.

        1. True that! IMHO the only Android device is the Google device (Nexus). All the other devices are proprietary “Android” (Android-Sense, Android-Touchwiz, etc) and I really don’t consider them to be Android any longer. But then again I don’t think Google wants to really support all Android devices. I really think that Google is good with dumping support onto the OEMs thus we’ll have this type of mess forever with Android.

          1. This is part of open source.. and why there are (how many ?) versions of the Linux OS.. When some other developer modifies and extends, you don’t expect the original developer to give support.. Google has supplied the base.. HTC has modified it.. It’s not Google “dumping” the support if it’s a product they didn’t create.

      2. I feel ya. . . if Nokia nails their windows phone I just might be headed that way. HP doesn’t seem to have done much in the way of variety for the hardware. I hope Nokia gives some good choices and really makes windows fly on their hardware.

        Getting a little sick of how abused Android has become by the carriers and OEMs.

  5. Seems like everyone is misunderstanding this. You will still get gingerbread, ice cream, etc. Just not with sense 3.0. Basically sense is now fragmented.

  6. Bottom line here is technology changes every year and there’s a chance that what we all have today might not be top notch down the road and if that is felt then always buy new. I am a current htc evo 4g owner and for the year 2010 that was great and for today it still does well but not top notch anymore. In 2010 September to be exact htc came out with the desire hd and desire z both of those smartphones had the new htc sense 2.0 which was then followed by the mytouch 4g in November 2010 then into this year January 2011 in the htc Thunderbolt. Those four devices have faster processors and 768mb of ram compared to the evo’s 512mb of ram and slower qualcomm chipset MSM 8650 while the thunderbolt, mytouch 4g, desire z, and desire hd all enjoyed the faster qualcomm chipset MSM 8655 you can now throw in the htc inspire 4g just brought to market in February 2011 with sense 2.0 and that faster processor. Bottom line this year is dualcore with crazy speeds with quad core coming at the end of this year and definitely next year at this time in htc/qualcomm’s case questions are where do you want to be on the single core side?? The dualcore side?? Or the quad core side which no product exist right at moment. I choose the dualcore side because sooner or later dualcore will be the minimum for devices. The Htc Evo 3d is a POWERHOUSE DEVICE PERFECT FOR 2011 INTO 2012 and the same can be said for the Htc Sensation these represent 2011 at it’s finest. I love my Evo it’s the granddaddy of 4g android devices but now I will retire mines for some dualcore love and 3d flavor and htc sense 3,0 represents the best for these devices and no other devices from htc should have simple as that. I will be on line day one for the best on android the Evo 3d.

    1. My old Nexus One which has a 2009 Snapdragon processor was the second phone to get Gingerbread so I don’t think that HTC really has an excuse for this. You don’t have to upgrade your phone just to get an update, well that is how Google sees it.

    2. Why do you have to post such a long response, half of which has virtually nothing to do with the article? You could have left out about the first half of your response and it would still be completely relevant. And if you’re going give the Thunderbolt a pat on the back here, please have the decency to do so in your other posts as well. This is the first time I’ve ever seen you say anything remotely nice about the Thunderbolt.

  7. Imagine how fast this phone would run if you root and uninstall sense. So much power feed up. But this looks so sexy, why would you want to

    1. Came here to say this. Battery life anyone?

  8. They will still release Gingerbread for phones, just with Sense 2.1. Don’t see the big deal here, you buy a newer better phone, you get a better phone. HTC is focused on delivering the best product.

    1. I’m reposting this comment for you also: My old Nexus One which has a 2009 Snapdragon processor was the second phone to get Gingerbread so I don’t think that HTC really has an excuse for this. You don’t have to upgrade your phone just to get an update, well that is how Google sees it.

      1. apples and oranges. just because ur 2009 phone can run ginger bread does mean that the new sense will run smoothly on a newer phone.

        1. Explain and you know they are also taking about phones that were just released like last week also right. How is what I said any different, my 16 month old phone can run the newest Android update but according to HTC their 1 week old phones can run theirs?!?

          1. To repost and reply to the exact same thing you’ve been saying across multiple posts and stories: Gingerbread does not equal Sense 3.0. The Nexus runs stock Android in all it’s fugly glory (go ahead and flame for that one lol). Sense UI is a far more graphical experience and requires more juice to operate. Any UI overlay takes extra juice. HTC continues to upgrade and improve Sense with more advanced and more attractive features. There comes a point where these features would bog down an older device. Again, this has nothing to do with Gingerbread. You could slap Sense 3.0 on a Froyo device, and it wouldn’t run well.

          2. Dude get off of HTC’s meat. Are you new to Android? If not you know damn well that by this weekend people will be running roms with Sense 3.0 on Evo’s, etc. I got two friends who own rooted Evo’s so I’ll ask one of them to try out Sense 3.0. Also I don’t care if you like stock or not, go back to WM6 if you don’t like the real version of Android. Your in the sub fanboy class of people, LOL.

          3. @jdog *facepalm* A true Android supporter embraces the ability of the OS to be so easily customized. That’s the REAL Android. Your comments border of iPhone-style totalitarianism, seeing as you’re effectively saying “the only real Android is the one Google gave us and any other is unacceptable.” If you like stock, power to you. I, for one, do not.

            And by this weekend? I sincerely doubt it. The general populace doesn’t even have access to it, unless I missed a news story. I’m sure it’ll get done, which if you bothered to read my other comments floating around you would know. I’m not sure what you mean by “sub fanboy class” of people, but your arguments (effectively “if you disagree, go use another OS lolololololol”) sound significantly more fanboyish to me. You’re entitled to your love of Vanilla, and I get my love of Sense. Can’t we all just get along as happy little green robots?

          4. *”And by this weekend? I sincerely doubt it. The general populace doesn’t
            even have access to it, **unless I missed a news story.” *The weekend
            hasn’t even started and Sense 3.0 is already running on the Desire HD:
            http://www.androidguys.com/2011/04/15/steenkin-sense-30/ If you are going
            to attempt to sound smart at least please do some research noob. For the
            record HTC Sense is the only skin I would use on Android, in fact I did for
            6 months back in the early days. What really bothers me is that yet again
            another manufacturer is making up bullsh*t that we know isn’t true.

  9. I don’t think this decision by HTC is that bad. They are releasing new hardware with a new version of Sense UI. If it isn’t mean for older phones, then who can blame them. Do you really expect to be running the same version of Sense on the 320×480 resolution Hero, as the 960×540 Sensation?

    1. Why not if people can get 2.3 on the G1. They should at least support phones with a 800×480 resolution.

    2. I don’t expect it to run on a damn Hero. But the top of the line phones that haven’t even been out for 6 months should be able to get this. Oh well new news is that the ROM is leaked now so I expect I should be able to test drive Sense 3.0 here soon.

  10. Considering the whole S line came out this year. (Desire S, Incredible S and Wildfire S) You would think these last couple of phones that HTC came out with would support Sense 3.0. The problem with all these new HTC phones that came out this year is they all have last year technology. I think HTC will go back to the drawing board and end up putting Sense 3.0 on some of the phones that came out at the end of 2010 and early 2011. You can never trust those messages on twitter.

    1. Is Sense 3.0 really that big of a deal? If it has Gingerbread (or the latest OS) and it runs smoothly and HTC continues to support Sense 2.1 devices, then what is the big deal?

      1. But we don’t know that they’re going to actually update any of them to GB either. Or once they do get around to it the newest HTC phones will be running Android 2.8 or something.

        1. Oh please. HTC isn’t Samsung. They have an excellent track record of updating their OS to what the hardware can handle well. They’ve already confirmed that pretty much all their hardware from the Incredible/EVO generation and newer will get Gingerbread. Sense 2.0/2.1 is highly probable. Getting Sense 3 to run will be up to the devs. And yes, Sense 3.0 is a big deal. Owners of HTC phones (generally) love SenseUI dearly.Every new iteration brings awesome tweaks to an already awesome UI. For example, Sense 3.0’s weather looks AMAZING to me. YMMV of course, but I personally can’t wait.

          1. Oh yes of course because HTC shows love to the Evo that means that all of their phones get timely updates right? Not the story with any of their other phones on other carriers. I’m not saying it’s HTC’s fault but a lot of people don’t realize that once you get any Android phone you may never see a significant update during the “life” of the phone (1 year imo).

          2. What phones haven’t been shown the love? Seriously, I don’t mean that sarcastically. What are you referring to. And for whatever it’s worth, the “life” of an Android device has been put at about 7 months.

  11. It will be impossible for developers to port this to older htc phones. Yes, I’m being sarcastic.

  12. I bought a Thunderbolt on release day. This is what HTC’s STILL says about the Thunderbolt.

    With this much power, speed and Android™ awesomeness, it’s not your dream phone. It’s the one after that. ”

    I really had hoped that the “one after that” would be able to run software HTC released just a month after the phone came out.

  13. I have to say that these OEMs are starting to make Apple look like a decent company when it comes to software support. . .

  14. Bought HTC desire HD and now see this WTF man ? I hope htc will not screw those who bough Desire hd recently.

  15. -deleted for a posting error-

Leave a reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

More in Handsets