HTC is well known for the Sense user interface. While their smart phones are also pretty well made and nicely designed, most users of their handset remember the ever constant custom UI that the Taiwan based company used. It is designed to be used for capacitive touch screen displays and it works great for users who want intuitive controls.
While it helps with operating systems like the Windows Mobile OS, the Sense interface can be somewhat detracting from the user experience with other operating systems. According to some users, they would prefer it if there was an option to disable the Sense UI for their Android handsets.
Windows Phone 7 however, is leaving no room for experimentation and custom UI’s. According to Microsoft, the use of custom skins will not be allowed in the new OS. This means that HTC will not be able to use sense on the upcoming HTC Gold smart phone –which is apparently, the first WP7 handset for HTC. Rumors are stating that the HTC Gold will have a 1.3 GHz CPU.
In the meanwhile, Microsoft looks like they are all set to launch this coming September. While the date has been adjusted by a full month, even phone makers seem to be on top of their schedules. If this keeps up, WP7 might come out a couple of months ahead of the Nokia and Intel made MeeGo OS.
Industry experts are expecting a big faceoff between the Windows Phone 7 and the iPhone OS. While Google’s Android is considered to be among the top operating systems, its’ open source nature is quite different from WP7 and the iOS –which are both trying to occupy the same niche. While Microsoft may have better features, Apple’s established reputation will certainly help make the competition pretty hard to predict.
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