Looks like the licensing nazi has struck again. The slick “Sense” UI on the coveted HTC Hero is not going to be available as an upgrade for anybody in the US any time soon. That’s right, even though my G1 and the MyTouch/Magic are made and developed by HTC, you’ll find it also says Google on the back. Being a Google-branded product apparently precludes the Magic and G1 from using the Sense UI featured on the Hero, by dint of some sort of evil licensing sorcery.
Personally I’m not that offended; the Hero was made to take advantage of the Sense UI, and I think you would get a sub-optimal experience on the G1 or Magic. Sure, I would have liked to give it a shot, but not so much that I’m going to take it to the streets.
It’s unclear which other, unreleased Android-running phones will be able and allowed to run Sense, but I wouldn’t hope too hard. You can always try to hack together a version for your phone, which will be easier once the Sense source gets leaked (very likely) but you’ll have to be patient.
That’s unfortunate. But really, as long as the G1 gets Flash I don’t care much about the rest of the Hero fluff (that I’d most likely use once and then never again).
What about outside the US, such as Europe or the UK?
But I thought Android phones were meant to be almost totally hackable. Surely there’s no hardware-level block on Google branded phones?
Another example why Google is doing BS by calling this open source. It is not!
The G1 has been totally hacked and rooted by xda-developers. The official Hero rom will be available within days of its release.
technicly it might even be possible to add the new skin, by the market…
it just the preinstalling that is not allowed, probalby, cause google wants to guarantee that the google experience looks the same everywhere…
its just brand name protection…
there are 3 licencing possible… the G1 and G2 have just the most sticts one, thats why they are allowed to the google logo on the back. if you dont want the logo than just pick one of the other licenses…
so its totally opensource… the google logo on the back is whats causing the trouble here…
With open source, nothing will be “proprietary” for very long, methinks.
@Devin,
Those of us with the Ion phone from Google IO should be able to port Sense over even tho its from Google its not labeled “With Google” and being an unlocked phone.
Could you confirm?
Thank You,
Michael Martin
i am not sad. this crappy HTC shit is maybe interesting for wm users. but why spoil android with it?
You are right, the sense UI is designed to run on higher configuration phones. I ported this in my G1 and its very slow that i have to disable Rosie home replacement to make it fast. But the good thing is that all the apps designed by htc are awesome and way better than Google’s apps – so worth switching + I got flash support on my phone ;)
How did you do it?
@ satish The hero has almost the same specs as the G1 and Magic except hero has about 30 more megs of ram. Reason it ran slow for u is because the build is not finished.
Hero has almost the same specs but with double RAM size then G1 (needed for running rich widgets on home screen)
Err did everyone forget all the other countries other than US? >.>” Even Canada gets an HTC Dream instead of the ‘G1′. They’ll probably get a nice upgrade on the rom, and the xda devs will port it over to the g1 like they ported the rogers rom.
I guess nobody figured to try taking a t-mobile SIM card and putting it into the Hero? I figured as much, next time you want to gloat and look like an idiot, do it off-line.
I plan on purchasing this phone come December when it finally becomes available here in the U.S. I am also happy to have read today that they are soon releasing a firmware update to fix the sluggishness that had been reported in reviews.
I do have one major concern. I am switichin gover from Windows Mobile. I am a big Microsoft supporter but I just couldn’t deal with Windows Mobile anymore. I did like however how I could sync my contacts and Live Mail account with my phone effortlessly. Is there any app available or in the works to support Microsft Live Mail and contact sync? I do not really use my Gmail account. And I have read about the forwarding option.. But I’d really just like to be able to put my preferred E-mail account on this lovely phone. Come hang out at http://www.HTC-Hero.com and thanks for reading.