Is Sense overdone?

[legion125]

Heres an article about the love/hate relationship with Sense. I really use to like Sense, but by the time HTC got to v3, it just became too busy and too much of a memory hog for my sensibilities. I like how ICS has begun to catch up with the UI's such as Sense, TouchWiz and Moto (whatever its called now).

 

I beleive these overlays were created because early Android was lacking in so many areas, especially looks. Although it still has a way to go, I think eventually, Android will replace the basic need for UI's unless you just need a specific widget for something.

 

http://www.phonedog.com/2012/02/13/should-htc-tone-sense-ui-down-a-little/

[McDroidBurger]

I've not used 3.0 but have used 2.1 and ICS. Love them both. A lot of sense items can be disabled or removed and if you're rooted you can relieve the bloat. Honestly though Sprint put more worthless apps and bloat on the phones then Sense does IMO.

 

P.S. I think It's MotoBlur now. Whatever that means. LOL.

 

The Android Strikes Back 4G

[Sgt. Slaughter]

I've not used 3.0 but have used 2.1 and ICS. Love them both. A lot of sense items can be disabled or removed and if you're rooted you can relieve the bloat. Honestly though Sprint put more worthless apps and bloat on the phones then Sense does IMO.

 

P.S. I think It's MotoBlur now. Whatever that means. LOL.

 

The Android Strikes Back 4G

 

Least Sprint lets you remove them or most of them unlike the big red company....

 

Also Sense 3.x is great imho. love the lockscreen changes they added to it as it makes the phone real easy to use. I agree Sense added to the android experience as their widgets were usualy better and also their app's like contacts, messages, and such i prefered to vanilla android's. BUT with ICS google has added in a ton of Sensish stuff like the new lockscreen and such so its clear manufacturers are going to have to go to greater lengths to be different if they still want to keep their skins/overlays. Also with Sense 3.0 and the HTC Hub getting complete skins is so easy, just wish there were more. (obviously speaking in the case for non-rooted devices there as if your rooted you can do as you wish with it)

 

The new Sense that I have seen and messed with very little has grown on me some to be honest. At first I hated it the launcher bar(Rosie) looked horrible compared to past Sense ones but that has grown on me lately after looking at it more. The one thing that completely gets to me still though is that they STILL are using the SAME icons/images for the whole status bar as they were back with the original Sense!! WTF HTC?!?! mean to say that from Android 1.5 all the way to 4.0 you NEVER felt the need to change those boring icons? If they did that alone it would make a big difference visually imho.

[McDroidBurger]

I couldn't remove any Sprint apps until I was rooted.

 

The Android Strikes Back 4G

[Sgt. Slaughter]

I couldn't remove any Sprint apps until I was rooted.

 

The Android Strikes Back 4G

 

what phone? with the 3D most was removable stock. I remember they made a point in one of their presentations i saw where they wanted to limit the amount of bloat and make most removable.

[McDroidBurger]

EVO 4G

Sprint NFL and all of their other useless apps. Granted I rooted my phone before I activated it even but couldn't remove any of that stuff without root access.

 

The Android Strikes Back 4G

[themuffinman]

Is sense over done? I don't know if I would say its over done because in my opinion of all the custom UI's available from htc, samsung, moto, lg etc.... sense is still the best one. My only really issue is the fact that sense is such a resource hog compared to the other UI's out there.

[S4GRU]

Is sense over done? I don't know if I would say its over done because in my opinion of all the custom UI's available from htc, samsung, moto, lg etc.... sense is still the best one. My only really issue is the fact that sense is such a resource hog compared to the other UI's out there.

 

This pretty much sums up my feelings too. Sense OK. TouchWiz is poor. All suck unnecessary resources. Plain ICS FTW!

 

S4GRU is now Mobile...sent from Tapatalk App

[pyroscott]

I like AOSP or as close as you can get. I'll download all my own widgets

 

Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk

[Euphorian]

This pretty much sums up my feelings too. Sense OK. TouchWiz is poor. All suck unnecessary resources. Plain ICS FTW!

 

S4GRU is now Mobile...sent from Tapatalk App

 

I agree

Although, TouchWiz is a little better this time around on the touch.

 

I always liked Sense but it`s just a bit "fattening" on system resources

HTC needs to slim it down a bit (but then it wouldn`t be as pretty)

 

I`ve been using ADW EX on a daily basis and have grown to love it !

[MacinJosh]

Sense on the Evo Shift released with the Gingerbread upgrade was a nightmare, but all the custom ROM's with hybrid 2.1/3.0 sense worked much nicer. Now that I'm using Sense 3.0 entirely, it can be slow on my Shift, but overall for the first day I'm very happy with it.

[Sgt. Slaughter]

Sense on the Evo Shift released with the Gingerbread upgrade was a nightmare, but all the custom ROM's with hybrid 2.1/3.0 sense worked much nicer. Now that I'm using Sense 3.0 entirely, it can be slow on my Shift, but overall for the first day I'm very happy with it.

 

3.0 was a big step Sense wise imho and really took it to the next level with the lock screen and such. Put it on a phone that can fully handle it and it is great. Love it on my 3D here!

 

The only thing im not going to like is the app drawer on ICS. swyping right to left to go through app pages and then once you get to the end it gets you to your widget's is going to be a pita imho. I'd rather it be the normal app drawer(up-down swyping) and then just have right to left swyping send you directly to your widgets.

[legion125]

Regarding bloatware, at least with Sprint rolling out Spring ID on phones, you can at least pick & choose what you want to add and forego the rest. That way if you like NFL and Telenav but hate NASCAR you can control what is placed. This is a lot better way to do it than AT&T and Verizon baking it in the OS.

[MacinJosh]

True, but Sprint ID is too limited seeing as it's only available for a small number of phones. It would have been nice to see it on my Evo Shift seeing as there are some nice themes on Sprint ID.

[oversight]

Overall I like Sense. That said, there are a couple changes I wish HTC would make to the Sense model though.

1. Without forcing uses to root their handset, give a user the ability to disable the Sense UI and revert to the stock Android UI. The HTC EVO 4G had this capability when it shipped, but it was removed with the Android 2.2 update. This can help a device appeal to both demographics.
   
2. The second option is to make it a stand alone launcher that HTC users can download much as they do with ADW, GO, or some of the others.
   

The idea behind Sprint ID is alright, but I despise that on some devices it is permanently fixed to the dock on the home screen. On the plus side with new devices, Sprint gives users the ability to remove the app stubs for the so-called bloatware people whine about.

[Sgt. Slaughter]

Overall I like Sense. That said, there are a couple changes I wish HTC would make to the Sense model though.

1. Without forcing uses to root their handset, give a user the ability to disable the Sense UI and revert to the stock Android UI. The HTC EVO 4G had this capability when it shipped, but it was removed with the Android 2.2 update. This can help a device appeal to both demographics.
   
2. The second option is to make it a stand alone launcher that HTC users can download much as they do with ADW, GO, or some of the others.
   

The idea behind Sprint ID is alright, but I despise that on some devices it is permanently fixed to the dock on the home screen. On the plus side with new devices, Sprint gives users the ability to remove the app stubs for the so-called bloatware people whine about.

 

What your talking about with the EVO4G was not the stock Android UI fully. It was merely just the stock Android Launcher/rosie that they left in for you to pick from. Theres a lot more different from the Stock Android UI than just the rosie/launcher.

[lrmcgarvey]

I have to that as far as skins go I still think sense it the best. But like most I wish htc gave you the choice to use it or not.

 

It does have a lot of nice features built in and my wife and daughtere loves it. In fact looking at new phones they won't even look at anything but htc phones.

[pyroscott]

It does have a lot of nice features built in and my wife and daughtere loves it. In fact looking at new phones they won't even look at anything but htc phones.

 

And that is why they cram it down everyone's throat, because it sells phones.

[Sgt. Slaughter]

And that is why they cram it down everyone's throat, because it sells phones.

 

yeah but if they could manage to figure out a way to allow users to in a sense dual boot the device and choose stock Android or Sense they could make a huge gain on everyone else. Sense is so deep in the OS that you can't just switch it out like a theme and change to stock Android really. Though I'm sure people would jump even if they just offered as close to a stock Android Theme in the HTC Hub...That there wouldn't be tough to do at all...

[shaunm82]

I like AOSP or as close as you can get. I'll download all my own widgets

 

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I was a big sense guy. Until recently I've used a couple of AOSP roms, on the EVO and I don't think I'll be going back. I have ICS on the Galaxy Tab, and I love it.

[MacinJosh]

I was a big sense guy. Until recently I've used a couple of AOSP roms, on the EVO and I don't think I'll be going back. I have ICS on the Galaxy Tab, and I love it.

 

I like AOSP, but I'm too used to Sense on HTC, I just have to stick with it.

[nova46]

Sense used to make "sense" in the early days of android. Now with ICS though, I really see no use for it. I used to be a big Sense fan for various reasons including the widgets, but after using CM7 for a while and finding apps/widgets to replace the ones I had with Sense, I really saw no point in going back. It just sucks up resources. I like the Sense lockscreen with the ring, but now stock ICS has most of the same functionality. Although I won't be using just stock, I'll be using CM9. Already ran the alpha version that JoelZ has been working on for the 3D and I absolutely love it. There's just some bugs that prevent it from being daily driver ready.

 

Sense went from adding polish and functionality to just eye candy and bloat. I don't need a fancy weather animation every time I unlock my screen (yes you can get rid of it but really?). The carosel (sp) effect in 3.0 and up is just useless. That prevents from using scrollable wallpapers which is one of the things I love about android.

[pyroscott]

Sense used to make "sense" in the early days of android. Now with ICS though, I really see no use for it. I used to be a big Sense fan for various reasons including the widgets, but after using CM7 for a while and finding apps/widgets to replace the ones I had with Sense, I really saw no point in going back. It just sucks up resources. I like the Sense lockscreen with the ring, but now stock ICS has most of the same functionality. Although I won't be using just stock, I'll be using CM9. Already ran the alpha version that JoelZ has been working on for the 3D and I absolutely love it. There's just some bugs that prevent it from being daily driver ready.

 

Sense went from adding polish and functionality to just eye candy and bloat. I don't need a fancy weather animation every time I unlock my screen (yes you can get rid of it but really?). The carosel (sp) effect in 3.0 and up is just useless. That prevents from using scrollable wallpapers which is one of the things I love about android.

I agree and that was one reason that I did not even put the HTC models in consideration when I bought a new phone

 

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