HTC’s Sense UI Coming To Other Android Phones

HTC unveiled its latest Android phone, the Hero, earlier in the week. Perhaps more exciting than the phone itself, however, was the custom Android interface called Sense. This UI lets users customize their device and provides better access to the information you want at a glance. The UI supports widgets, customized profiles, and consolidated views of various types of information.

HTC has said its future devices will use this Sense UI. Now, we’re seeing more good news from the company, with various sources reporting that HTC CEO Peter Chou has confirmed the new HTC Sense user interface "will be available on some other existing devices."

We don’t yet know which devices will be getting the Sense upgrade, but the HTC Magic is a likely candidate, given that it recently went on sale. By making the Sense UI available to other handsets, HTC is providing these devices with additional capabilities such as an expanded Home screen with HTC widgets as well as tighter integration with social-networking tools such as Twitter and Facebook.

Sadly, it appears that any “Google” branded phone will be exempt from the Sense upgrade due to licensing terms between Google and HTC that prevent the manufacturer from tweaking the interface too much. The current T-Mobile G1 as well as the T-Mobile myTouch 3G that will be available this summer are both "with Google" phones. Perhaps a hacker will find a way around this restriction and enable it anyway.