Forbes spoke to Drew Bamford, HTC’s head of User Experience about their plans for the future of HTC Sense.

Drew spoke enthusiastically about HTC Sense adding a cloud-based component, and plans to use it as a content delivery platform and part of the digital living room, and also as a place to add more “natural interactions.”

Drew spoke of a ereader application integrated in Sense, which will help deliver music, magazines, newspapers and video to users, both in Europe and the USA.

“Our intention is to build experiences that further integrate content acquisition and discovery and release them in U.S. products,” said Bamford.

He also spoke about the HTC Media Link, a DLNA adaptor with HDMI output, which he described as a “mini set-top box” and “a phone with no screen” and imagined a future with phones were portable DVRs, collecting and storing shows that can then be played wirelessly to TVs.

He also spoke with excitement about video calling and 4G. “At some point, you can imagine replacing your home Internet service with your 4G phone,” he says. “I think we’re on the cusp of that transformation where mobile products and living room life collide.”

“Over the next year or so, we’ll be taking Sense and making it a richer, more capable, more compelling experience,” says Bamford. “We don’t plan on abandoning the foundation of Sense we’ve built so far.”

Of course all of this is all very interesting, but with the user experience now firmly in the hands of Microsoft, there is a question if HTC will extend these efforts to their Windows Phone 7 devices.  It is of note that HTC’s Windows Phone 7 handsets do not support DLNA used by HTC Media Link, and none feature TV out like many of HTC’s Android handsets. HTC also did not release an ereader app on their Windows Phone 7 handsets, despite having the same feature on their Windows Mobile handsets earlier.

On the other hand HTC did find a way of bringing some Sense features, like HTC Attentive Phone, on Windows Phone 7 handsets, so the company clearly has some scope and commitment to Windows Phone 7, so we hope to see more Sense on Windows phone 7 in the future.

Update:

Also from Forbes we have Drew Bamford addressing the Windows Phone 7 question directly.

“HTC’s goal is for the Sense experience to span all of our products,” says Bamford. “Microsoft has its own goal of consistency across Windows Phone 7 products. I think it comes down to working closely with Microsoft to do as much as we can.”

He continued:“We have a good relationship with Microsoft so we’re continuing to work with them to figure out how to enable a Sense experience without breaking their model,”  “Our expectation is that we will be able to do more over time.”

Read the full interview at Forbes here.

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