HTC Hero: Software Interface Overview
A lot has already been said about the Google Android operating system created for communicators and other portable devices on the hub, but not everyone knows that the classic interface, known from the previously presented models from HTC G1 Dream and G2 Magic, is not an integral part of the platform and can fundamentally change.
Noticeable changes in the interface can be seen in the widely advertised model of the HTC Hero device, which, as you know, will be sold in Russia. The review was carried out using the HTC Dream G1 communicator and the development of the androidfan.ru project team , which allows you to run firmware images without flashing the device .
Caution - a lot of screenshots, possibly a lot of traffic.
HERO launch screen. Instead of the iridescent ANDROID inscription present in the G1 firmware, HTC decided to use its own logo, from which we can conclude that the android PR itself, apparently, is going through the final stage, and the vendors are now PR themselves.
Immediately after the launch (by the way, oddly enough, not very long, I expected more time), the system offers to select the current locale. The Russian language is present right at the start, which cannot but rejoice.
the difference after starting the firmware is obvious. Immediately after choosing a locale, a tutorial on using the on-screen keyboard starts, which, incidentally, is not available in the official G1 / Magic firmware (but present in unofficial ones). I post the screenshots in the order of training.
I believe that the use of such a textbook is very, very justified, so when you first get acquainted with the device, not all the subtleties are recognized and it is not always clear what is what.
After learning how to use the keyboard, the setup wizard starts, which, in principle, is similar to that present in G1, but allows you to skip activation of your Google account.
Screenshot of “Setting Auto Sync”:
Screenshot "Account Settings":
In the synchronization settings, you can specify Google accounts, Echange Active Sync (!), And regular email. As can be seen from the picture, in the third model built on android, HTC finally (by popular demand and reviews) introduced synchronization with the local computer. Also can not but rejoice.
The most unexpected screen - setting up social network accounts! Our phones are the most internet phones in the world. Facebook, twitter and Flick, and even some other networks, as it turned out, are available on the device in the form of widgets and native clients. To me personally, it has endured the brain.
After completing the setup process, we are offered to look at a tutorial on using the phone:
I will not consider this tutorial in this post.
After closing the initial setup wizard, a window appeared with a spinning image of the wait, which is usually used in AJAX services, and it hung for a very, very long time:
However, the wait was not in vain and my eyes opened a delightful, imaginative Hero desktop. The appearance and usability of this interface is different from the G1 / Magic interface like heaven and earth:
The clock, presented as a desktop widget, has a beautiful, soft animation of turning the hands to the right hour. Unfortunately, I don’t know how to shoot a video, but this is a must see. In general, the smoothness of graphics and widgets on the Android platform is simply unbelievable, it seems impossible to combine such beauties with such a sensitive responsiveness of the interface.
The big "Phone" button just calls you to click on yourself, which, in fact, I did:
Since I refused to integrate with a Google account (I skipped the setup at startup), only the account number of the balance check recorded on the SIM card is shown in the numbers. However, even here you can see that the dialer’s interface has also been fundamentally redesigned - now it looks in a thoughtful and ascetic business style, from which we can conclude that HTC Hero is a device that will be positioned as a business class device. Well, at least that's very similar.
The gray icons at the bottom of the screen allow you to navigate the dialer tabs, only in G1 they were on top, and in HERO - below. Moving the control to the bottom of the screen makes controlling the device more convenient - you don’t have to “spread out” your fingers too much. Moving is possible both by horizontal scrolling of the trackball and by fingers on the screen, and in that case, there is a smooth, very pleasant scrolling of the icon selection, with very realistic physics. In general, the physics of graphics, in this firmware is just up to the mark, it seems that you are really pulling and moving something, and everything happens very, very smoothly, pleasantly and neatly.
If you return to the desktop picture, next to the "Phone" button you can see two more on each side. The triangle up in the circle to the left of the phone is the menu button.
The menu, however, is practically no different from the standard, with the exception of design colors, and for some reason, the lack of a scroll bar on the left, as it was in G1. Therefore, it is difficult to understand exactly where you are, and slightly inconvenient.
The “+” button, located to the right of the “Phone” inscription, suggests adding several sets of elements to the desktop: HTC widgets, Google widgets, Shortcuts and Folders. Since the last three are also present in G1, I decided to see what HTC widgets are. To my amazement there was no limit:
Twitter is finally (!) Available as a widget! Well, in general, there is a whole lot in the list of widgets, this is only the first screen of this list.
The appearance of widgets is also radically changed. Widgets themselves, as I understand it, can have three different sizes - compact, medium and advanced. Here, for example, is the HTC desktop calendar widget:
If you look closely at the calendar widget above, you will notice that even the name of the month on the icon above the calendar is written in Russian! The level of localization, I am sure, will be just on top!
And now the main, and probably the most important difference between Hero and G1 / Magic. Get ready. In HERO 7 (seven!) Desktops! This is just fantastic. Scrolling between tables is carried out in three options, in contrast to the two G1 options: moving the tap with your finger in an empty area, a trackball and a special strip that appears when the "menu", "Phone" buttons and the + button of adding widgets are hidden:
In the locked state, Hero, just like G1, provides some information for the user: time, date and name of the operator:
Pressing the hardware menu button directly on the desktop opens up a few more interesting facts:
In the Hero menu there is an item "Themes". Themes are several sets of predefined widgets for desktops that depend on your occupation - communication, the Internet, multimedia, and more. The theme of widgets and their sets deserves a separate consideration, which I am going to devote to another article on the already updated Hero firmware, which will be available for my G1.
And finally - turn off the device:
As you can see, even this item has not remained unchanged, and in comparison with G1 in Hero more functionality is available.
Unfortunately, in this post I do not have time to consider all the new features of Hero, however, as I said above, they will be presented to the habrasociety in the near future, on the updated firmware, which is also greatly revised in comparison with the current one.
The post was written by the man Nick Denry, who, so far, does not have an account on the hub
Noticeable changes in the interface can be seen in the widely advertised model of the HTC Hero device, which, as you know, will be sold in Russia. The review was carried out using the HTC Dream G1 communicator and the development of the androidfan.ru project team , which allows you to run firmware images without flashing the device .
Caution - a lot of screenshots, possibly a lot of traffic.
HERO launch screen. Instead of the iridescent ANDROID inscription present in the G1 firmware, HTC decided to use its own logo, from which we can conclude that the android PR itself, apparently, is going through the final stage, and the vendors are now PR themselves.
Immediately after the launch (by the way, oddly enough, not very long, I expected more time), the system offers to select the current locale. The Russian language is present right at the start, which cannot but rejoice.
the difference after starting the firmware is obvious. Immediately after choosing a locale, a tutorial on using the on-screen keyboard starts, which, incidentally, is not available in the official G1 / Magic firmware (but present in unofficial ones). I post the screenshots in the order of training.
I believe that the use of such a textbook is very, very justified, so when you first get acquainted with the device, not all the subtleties are recognized and it is not always clear what is what.
After learning how to use the keyboard, the setup wizard starts, which, in principle, is similar to that present in G1, but allows you to skip activation of your Google account.
Screenshot of “Setting Auto Sync”:
Screenshot "Account Settings":
In the synchronization settings, you can specify Google accounts, Echange Active Sync (!), And regular email. As can be seen from the picture, in the third model built on android, HTC finally (by popular demand and reviews) introduced synchronization with the local computer. Also can not but rejoice.
The most unexpected screen - setting up social network accounts! Our phones are the most internet phones in the world. Facebook, twitter and Flick, and even some other networks, as it turned out, are available on the device in the form of widgets and native clients. To me personally, it has endured the brain.
After completing the setup process, we are offered to look at a tutorial on using the phone:
I will not consider this tutorial in this post.
After closing the initial setup wizard, a window appeared with a spinning image of the wait, which is usually used in AJAX services, and it hung for a very, very long time:
However, the wait was not in vain and my eyes opened a delightful, imaginative Hero desktop. The appearance and usability of this interface is different from the G1 / Magic interface like heaven and earth:
The clock, presented as a desktop widget, has a beautiful, soft animation of turning the hands to the right hour. Unfortunately, I don’t know how to shoot a video, but this is a must see. In general, the smoothness of graphics and widgets on the Android platform is simply unbelievable, it seems impossible to combine such beauties with such a sensitive responsiveness of the interface.
The big "Phone" button just calls you to click on yourself, which, in fact, I did:
Since I refused to integrate with a Google account (I skipped the setup at startup), only the account number of the balance check recorded on the SIM card is shown in the numbers. However, even here you can see that the dialer’s interface has also been fundamentally redesigned - now it looks in a thoughtful and ascetic business style, from which we can conclude that HTC Hero is a device that will be positioned as a business class device. Well, at least that's very similar.
The gray icons at the bottom of the screen allow you to navigate the dialer tabs, only in G1 they were on top, and in HERO - below. Moving the control to the bottom of the screen makes controlling the device more convenient - you don’t have to “spread out” your fingers too much. Moving is possible both by horizontal scrolling of the trackball and by fingers on the screen, and in that case, there is a smooth, very pleasant scrolling of the icon selection, with very realistic physics. In general, the physics of graphics, in this firmware is just up to the mark, it seems that you are really pulling and moving something, and everything happens very, very smoothly, pleasantly and neatly.
If you return to the desktop picture, next to the "Phone" button you can see two more on each side. The triangle up in the circle to the left of the phone is the menu button.
The menu, however, is practically no different from the standard, with the exception of design colors, and for some reason, the lack of a scroll bar on the left, as it was in G1. Therefore, it is difficult to understand exactly where you are, and slightly inconvenient.
The “+” button, located to the right of the “Phone” inscription, suggests adding several sets of elements to the desktop: HTC widgets, Google widgets, Shortcuts and Folders. Since the last three are also present in G1, I decided to see what HTC widgets are. To my amazement there was no limit:
Twitter is finally (!) Available as a widget! Well, in general, there is a whole lot in the list of widgets, this is only the first screen of this list.
The appearance of widgets is also radically changed. Widgets themselves, as I understand it, can have three different sizes - compact, medium and advanced. Here, for example, is the HTC desktop calendar widget:
If you look closely at the calendar widget above, you will notice that even the name of the month on the icon above the calendar is written in Russian! The level of localization, I am sure, will be just on top!
And now the main, and probably the most important difference between Hero and G1 / Magic. Get ready. In HERO 7 (seven!) Desktops! This is just fantastic. Scrolling between tables is carried out in three options, in contrast to the two G1 options: moving the tap with your finger in an empty area, a trackball and a special strip that appears when the "menu", "Phone" buttons and the + button of adding widgets are hidden:
In the locked state, Hero, just like G1, provides some information for the user: time, date and name of the operator:
Pressing the hardware menu button directly on the desktop opens up a few more interesting facts:
In the Hero menu there is an item "Themes". Themes are several sets of predefined widgets for desktops that depend on your occupation - communication, the Internet, multimedia, and more. The theme of widgets and their sets deserves a separate consideration, which I am going to devote to another article on the already updated Hero firmware, which will be available for my G1.
And finally - turn off the device:
As you can see, even this item has not remained unchanged, and in comparison with G1 in Hero more functionality is available.
Unfortunately, in this post I do not have time to consider all the new features of Hero, however, as I said above, they will be presented to the habrasociety in the near future, on the updated firmware, which is also greatly revised in comparison with the current one.
The post was written by the man Nick Denry, who, so far, does not have an account on the hub