Turnarounds for the Taiwanese company has mainly been negative, from being a powerhouse in the smartphone world back in 2011, to most recently plummeting off the main stock exchange in Taiwan. Has their team finally smartened up by listening to its consumers? Nigel Newby-House, their head of product, talks about how the company intends to scale back on their custom UI, HTC Sense; bases that have been covered by Samsung on their TouchWiz skin, which now is a lot lighter than before.
It’ll be a nice change to see HTC change their inclination to focus more on their “truly meaningful” experiences on Sense – BlinkFeed, Zoe, and themes. Engineers will spend less time tinkering with menus and icons and instead be involved in ensuring that Google’s Android updates are pushed out earlier than its competitors. Soon you’ll probably say goodbye to that repetitive email app that they put on their devices, everyone is hopeful that HTC’s mission to make phones less frustrating actually comes to life.
Not specific to just HTC, users who own OEM smartphones tend to be flustered by the same problem, since they know that the manufacturers will take longer than other makers to get an update out. We’ve already seen some improvement from HTC, with their promise to deliver “every” Google software update within 15 days of the Nexus line, at least on the HTC One A9. U-turning on the Head of Americas tweet, who said it was an “unrealistic” for any smartphone maker to commit to.
Did you hear that? The Unlocked A9 will receive every Google SW update within 15 days of Nexus devices! #BeBrilliant
— HTC USA (@HTCUSA) October 20, 2015
Obviously contextual, we’re not sure how vague “every” means and as pointed out by GSM Arena, there’s bound to be a cut-off moment for support, as always. How far do the boundaries of the update go? Will it cover only certain regions? Lets see if HTC pays any heed to these important questions.
