HTC on Windows Phone 7 – “We can’t cover, we can’t change, but we can add.”

July 8, 2010 | By Surur

HTC will be doing their own tiles. Pocketlint have spoken to Eric Lin, HTC’s online community manager, about their Windows Phone 7 plans. Recent leaks, including from their own servers, have confirmed several handsets in the works from the company.

Eric Lin confirmed the company was definitely in the Windows Phone 7 game.

"We have every expectation that we’re going to be there on day one," he said. "I know that we’re working with Microsoft. I know that we have access to the OS, to the tools, so I have every reason to believe that we’re going to be there on day one".

Pocketlint noted that no HTC handsets have so far been shown yet, versus LG and Samsung’s handset, which has shown up everywhere.

"I think it might be one of those cases that they don’t have to," explained Lin. "Honestly, nobody doubts HTC’s dominance when it comes to Windows phones. If anybody does doubt our dominance, it’s only because they’ve never seen sales figures.

"I think it’s one of those cases where we’re really in a situation where people don’t mention us because they simply don’t have to. We’re the ones where it’s so accepted, you never have to say anything about us".

Eric noted that Windows Phone 7 will be fundamentally different from Windows Mobile for HTC.

"We won’t be able to change the core applications. We won’t be able to put a skin on top of the operating systems like we’ve done in the past," said Lin.

"However, that doesn’t mean that we can’t do anything. We can add. We can’t cover, we can’t change, but we can add. So we’re going to look at how we can add, and how we can add value because of that.

"Even for the homescreen [Microsoft] is pretty prescriptive. But we can still add to the homescreen, so we can add our own tiles to that. It’s going to be a lot more adding than changing".

While we expect great hardware from HTC, we can certainly hope HTC will also bring some of its own software secret sauce, including essentials such as for example WIFI tethering.

About Surur

Site Admin and Windows Phone enthusiast, he has been using Windows Mobile devices since before they were called PocketPC’s. He is currently sporting a HTC 7 Trophy.

Tagged htc, software, windows phone 7

efjay

Yay to no more Sense, nothing but a pretty face!

KennyB123

I'd take Sense in a heartbeat to the new WP7 tile interface.

efjay

Sense has a lot of fans, but I'm not one of them. Slows the phone down, is buggy, delays updates for the device being delivered timely and the disconnect from the underlying OS is jarring and makes it look half baked. WP7's start screen works better for me, I can promote the features I want rather than having to go swiping left or right like with Sense.

chmun77

Sense is good in its own way. You can easily access to updates about stocks, twitter news, FB news, weather forecast, etc etc being display entirely on the screen. Tiles, on the other hand, cannot display so much details. And I doubt anyone will wanna read update news summary on such small squares right?

I'm using HD2 and Sense is running so smooth on it. But of course mine is running a cooked rom which is optimized.

dropqube

Good god HTC. PLEASE we want a frickin' picture leak already!
http://intensedebate.com/people/djguapo djguapo

Penny for your thoughts, Wen?

http://intensedebate.com/people/WMPerson Wen(WM)

1 sec, ill write an article about what I think of their above statements…

da9th_one

so everyone is gonna be walking around with the same ghey looking phone…no thanks ms, but i'll pass…

http://twitter.com/ST0808 @ST0808

You mean like iPhone thingy
David

STO808 beat me to the punch….

I understand your frustration because now my Touch Pro 2 looks like all the new android phones and i hate it…

http://intensedebate.com/people/martinschmidler martinschmidler

I bet they will add weather, footprints maybe an e-reader app…. and they could add a navigation-software as well
David

I think they will add different tiles, maybe customise their own tiles to show missed calls or new emails, or new facebook and Twitter updates in one tile

There are alot of possibilities when you have a creative mind.

chmun77

But, those tiles will still be just squares….. or rectangles. and it will be too small to read information just on the home screen itself.

GAM3R

Eric Lin had mentioned in his quotes "can’t do anything, can add, can’t cover, can’t change, but can add" .. thats not new, but very old quote, he borrowed from MSFT's qoute about software OS for PC.. Wp7 OS will become bloat-ware hog and it is totally plain robbery internal memory GB's space like Vista.. …Perfect example is my 20GB XB360 hard drive has 16GB data only, because preinstalled bloat-ware hog! Another example is my 32GB iTouch has only 29.28GB of free space, it is totally plain robbery.. Stop advertising it as 16 or 32GB…

http://intensedebate.com/people/chinch chinch

MS has a limit on add-on apps that a carrier can add to the WP7 experience. same goes for HTC, samsung, etc.

Bloatware is over. (and thankfully the Sense(less)UI is DEAD.