We’ve noticed since the announcement of the HTC One M9 that our favorite mobile manufacturer has been breaking off more and more core pieces of the Android user interface, HTC Sense and delivering them to the Google Play store. Aside from adding core apps HTC has been working hard to update those already in the store.
New in the Play store is HTC Tasks (March 17), HTC Calendar (March 31), HTC Speak (March 31).
HTC Speak is an interesting nugget. With Speak HTC is offering a voice commands similar to those with Google Now for ease of use. For instance, you can tap the microphone icon when using the phone dialer to say someone’s name or their phone number. When you’re in car mode tap three fingers on the screen or the Speak button with a single finger. You can also enable voice commands in the camera app and say things like “Capture” or “Record” to interact with your camera without having to tap the screen to close the shutter. The voice controls were originally included with the HTC Eye experience update to the camera, but with Android 5.0 HTC has reorganized the voice support with HTC Speak.
As mentioned earlier, we think HTC locked their developers in a basement with lots of caffeine, because roughly 12 HTC apps have been updated since March. Not all were directly related to HTC Sense, but all are worth a mention here.
- HTC Re
- HTC Fetch
- HTC Scribble
- HTC Service Pack
- HTC Clock
- HTC Camera
- HTC Dot View
- HTC Connect
- HTC Lock Screen
- HTC Zoe
- HTC One Gallery (formerly HTC Cloudex)
How do you think HTC’s app updates are working out for users? Do they even notice or should HTC just leave all the updates for delivery when the next Android OS gets updated through the carriers?
I’m loving the updates through the play store, it’s good having the same updates out at the same time in our household rather waiting an age for carriers to push OTA updates to each of the devices.
I like it this way as it’s clear to see that HTC are committed to the users experience by the number of updates and tweaks that are coming through. Waiting for one big update just seemed like we were stuck in limbo and forgotten about.
Nice one guys.