HTC One with KitKat and HTC Sense 5.5 is finally out!

Android 4.4 KitKat with HTC Sense 5.5 is now available for the HTC One. This is A-MUST-HAVE update for all HTC One owners. Prepare your USB cable and get ready for some KitKat!

Sounds great? Well, you might not be happy after all. So far the update is available only for the owners of the Developer Edition of the HTC One. But there is a good news too - you can have KitKat update on your "regular" HTC One too, without waiting for the official update (which might take few more weeks).

To make it possible, Android Revolution HD has been updated to 40.x series, based on the official Android 4.4 KitKat & HTC Sense 5.5 update (4.06.1540.2). 

Why Android KitKat update is that important? It has several major changes:

1. Much improved security
2. Smarter Location settings
3. Better performance
4. Improved battery consumption
5. Faster multitasking
6. Better Google Hangouts integration
7. ...and much more!

Here are some screenshots. You can see the new Location settings panel:

Users feedback so far leaves no doubts - this update brings significant performance improvements. Some users are even reporting, that Android 4.4 with HTC Sense 5.5 gives better performance experience than pure KitKat update for the HTC One Google Edition we wrote about here. I think this is enough said. Don't stay on your old 4.3 OS and grab newest 4.4 update as soon as possible!

Link to the original XDA-developer thread
Link to the download page

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KitKat for HTC One Google Edition is out. Sense version coming soon!

Android "four point four" (aka KitKat) is what most HTC One users are still eagerly waiting for. The "senseless" version is already available to download via Over The Air (OTA) update on the HTC One Google Play Edition.

If you haven't received the update yet, or you don't have a Google Play Edition variant of the HTC One, you can still have a taste of the fresh Google goody. Just navigate to my HTC One Google Play Edition thread on the xda-developers forum and download Android Revolution HD based on Android 4.4 KitKat for the HTC One.

What we've already learned so far is that you'll probably need an S-OFF device in order to properly boot KitKat custom ROM. It's a weird issue we still investigate and we hope to come up with some more convenient solution soon!

Also some good news for HTC Sense fans - Android 4.4 with HTC Sense 5.5 on board will be available very soon! Don't be upset it's still Sense 5.5 instead of Sense 6.0. New update will bring a lot of bugs fixes and all the goodies Android 4.4 comes with. Stay tuned!

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Stock system dumps (Android 4.3 with official HTC Sense 5.5) for HTC One

First official update with brand new HTC Sense 5.5 for the HTC One arrived today. The new software number is 3.62.401.1 and it's based on Android 4.3. To receive the OTA update your device must be running 2.24.401.8 software and you must own the international version of HTC One (M7_UL). If there is no update for you CID yet, you can download and flash stock system dump instead.

HTC One thread - HTC One *STOCK* ROM | 3.62.401.1 | Jelly Bean | HTC Sense 5.5

Download links can be found on this blog, under Downloads section - Downloads

The official list of changes from the OTA update:

• System Improvements
  - Android 4.3 and HTC Sense 5.5 update
• Video Highlights improvements
  - Updated interface
  - Add soundtracks to videos
• BlinkFeed improvements
  - Access recommended news from your social network
  - Additional global news sources
  - Save articles to read later or offline
  - Create custom feeds from news media, Twitter and YouTube
• Music improvements
  - Updated interface
  - Embedded music channel with new scenes
• Sense TV improvements
  - Updated interface
  - Add MY Picks Page to improve program management

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The official Nexus 5 press shot directly from Google

It seems that the photo of the incoming Nexus 5 "leaked" to the web. Of course, I believe that nothing happens mistakenly, especially when it comes to Google. Let's call it "official leak" then.

As you can see, the device is powered by the Android 4.4 KitKat with a refreshed User Interface. It still has a very minimalistic design, so probably there won't be an "interface revolution", which appears to be a common policy by Google. And it seems to work quite well, looking at the marketing success of the Nexus 4.

Not much we can say yet about the visual changes in the Android 4.4 KitKat, but looking at the picture you can see white notification icons and refreshed "Phone" and "Camera" icons.

Personally, I think that the new Nexus 5 looks gorgeous. The volume buttons are again on the left and the power button is on the right side, which is the best combination (typical for Nexus devices), because you can easily turn the device ON with your thumb right after grabbing the device into your hand. It also seems to be made of an really high quality material. The screen would be probably IPS LCD 4,95" with a 1080p (Full HD) resolution.

If the rumours are true that the heart of the new Nexus 5 will be a Snapdragon 800 SoC, then I see no other scenario but a great success of this device.

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Stock system dumps (Android 4.3 with HTC Sense 5.5) for HTC One

Very important update is out since yesterday for HTC One user. Android Revolution HD 30.0 - the world first custom ROM based on Android 4.3 & HTC Sense 5.5 for HTC One is available for download on XDA-Developers thread. However, there is always one problem when it comes to HTC updates - no RUUs (ROM Update Utility) officially available for download for regular users (HTC One Developer Edition and Google Edition seems to be the only exceptions). Why RUU is that important to us? I already made a short explanation here, but let's remind that again.

RUU (.exe) files for MS Windows are installers of complete firmware, including for example system or data partitions. Not having latest RUU means:

1. users using custom ROMs can't download latest OTA from HTC,
2. developers have no system dumps they can work with.

Ad. 1) If you want to download and flash latest OTA, your device must have completely stock system partition and recovery. Every OTA update is checking MD5 of each file on system partition to ensure .apk patch can be applied. If even one of 1000 files won't match, OTA update installation will fail. In this case you need to flash the latest official update you can find (even one year old) and later download official OTA updates.

Ad. 2) There are few workarounds, however none of them is as good as having a RUU:

• adb pull /system in custom recovery mode*
• cp /system /data/media/dump in custom recovery mode*
• nandroid backup
• boot partition can be taken from inside firmware.zip inside OTA .zip package or it can be dumped using dd if=</path/to/boot/partition> of=/data/media/boot.img

* adb pull, cp or dd commands must be executed from custom recovery mode, otherwise system dump will be missing few important files or these files will have 0kb size. Also, keep in mind that adb features are heavily limited on stock un-rooted device. In case of dd command, root access (su) is needed to make such operation.

That's why I created my own stock system dumps (as a custom recovery .zip packages) for some HTC devices. I believe this can save a lot of time for many XDA users and developers.

HTC One thread - HTC One *STOCK* ROM | 3.57.401.500 | Jelly Bean | HTC Sense 5.5

Download links can be found on this blog, under Downloads section - Downloads

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First custom ROM based on HTC Sense 5.5 is out for HTC One!

Yes, here it is! The one you've been waiting for! Android Revolution HD 30.0 is the world first custom ROM for the HTC One based on Android 4.3 and new HTC Sense 5.5 UI.

Just grab it from downloads section!

My XDA-Developers thread with link to follow my work - http://goo.gl/UajIh2

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More details about incoming Sense 5.5 update

The dust hasn't settled yet after the first worldwide HTC Sense 5.5 screenshots and here comes the another part of the fresh new details about newest HTC Sense UI. Have fun!

Lock-screen widgets - possibility to place one widget on the lock-screen. You need to swipe left to see the additional screen, where you can place of one these widgets: Gmail, Google+, Calendar, Google Keep (x2), Calculator, Music, Google Now and some widgets from 3rd party applications with support for lock-screen widgets, like Minimalistic Text or SoundHound

Possibility to use entire UI in landscape mode when device is inside car dock. Home screen, phone panel and basically everything else is working very well in landscape mode.

Possibility to use "Automatic brightness" and "Maximum brightness level" at the same time. This allows you to save some battery, because brightness max level can be limited. 

Possibility to edit "Phone" panel. You can rearrange them or even remove unused tabs. This is rather small, but very nice improvement. You don't need to swipe 3 or 4 times any more to access particular tab.

New BlinkFeed settings panel, where you can select the exact content you want to view on your BlinkFeed screen. It seems that HTC really focused on their BlinkFeed child. Let's hope it will still be getting better and better!

Possibility to protect SMS backup with password. I believe that every "security" or "privacy" related update is important, even if most users won't probably use it.

"Stay awake" is finally back in Developer options in Settings. Taken away few months ago and desperately desired by users and developers.

Up to 6 (previously 5) home-screen panels including BlinkFeed screen. In my personal opinion 6 is weird number because this little thin line, also known as screen indicator can never be in the centre. This can be little confusing when using the device.

"Do not disturb" mode accessible via Quick Settings panel. Really great feature if you don't want to be waken up few times during the night!

More details coming soon!

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Meet the HTC One Max, a Supersized HTC One

That big, bold beauty pictured above is the HTC One Max. There have been more than a few leaks about this product. Why? There's a lot to love - literally and figuratively. Let's start with a quick video introducing the product:

The HTC One Max is everything you love about the HTC One, supersized! Here's the list of the most important device features:

• A massive 5.9 inch, 1080p display (Super LCD3)
• A gigantic 3300 mAH internal, non-removable Lithium Polymer battery
• A convenient rear fingerprint scanner for fast locking and launching of apps
• A side-mounted power button for fast and easy access
• 32 GB or 16 GB (varies by region) of internal storage, 2 GB of RAM
• microSD card support, up to 64 GB in size
• Android 4.3 with Sense 5.5
• Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 processor at 1.7 Ghz
• The same UltraPixel camera from the HTC One (4 MP, f/2.0, 28mm lens)
• 164.5 x 82.5 x 10.29mm in size, 217 grams in weight
• Supports Qualcomm QuickCharge 1.0, with an included 1.5A charger in the box

Battery life is the #1 thing consumers want to see improved, so if you're all about the long-lasting battery life, the HTC One Max is absolutely amazing. How amazing? Almost 55 hours of usage between charges. And this isn't putting it in power saving mode, turning things off constantly, etc. This is WiFi on, Bluetooth on, and GPS on during the daylight hours.

Part of what makes the battery life great is us using the Snapdragon 600 processor. The HTC One Max has the same screen resolution as the HTC One, which is a top performer, so the experience is the same on both devices, so while other devices in this category are shipping with the Snapdragon 800, it's the day to day experience of using the device that matters more than the specs.

How does it compare, size-wise, to the HTC One and HTC One mini? A picture says it all:

Make no mistake, this is a big phone, but it's amazing how quickly you can adapt to the larger size.

It's worth pointing out how great gaming is on a 5.9 inch screen. BoomSound is incredible - the speaker chambers are larger, so it's even louder than the HTC One - and the camera experience is amazing with such a large screen. Sharing photos and videos with others on a 5.9 inch screen is a great experience!

Availability on specific carriers, and pricing, will be announced in the coming days/weeks. The best thing you can do is contact your wireless carrier via Twitter and ask them when the HTC One Max is coming - they need to see the enthusiasm consumers have for our phones. Remember the carrier decides whether or not to carry our phones and sell them to you.

Full specification:

SIZE: 164.5 x 82.5 x 10.29mm 
WEIGHT: 217g
DISPLAY: 5.9” Full HD 1080p
CPU: Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 600, 1.7GHz quad-core CPUs
PLATFORM: Android™ 4.3 with HTC Sense™ 5.5
MEMORY: Total storage:  16GB/32GB | RAM: 2GB | Expansion card slot: Supports microSD™ 
SIM: micro SIM
SENSORS: Gyro sensor | Accelerometer | Proximity sensor | Ambient light sensor | Fingerprint scanner
CONNECTIVITY
  3.5 mm stereo audio jack
  NFC
  Bluetooth® 4.0 with aptX™ enabled 
  Wi-Fi®: IEEE 802.11 a/ac/b/g/n
  DLNA® for wirelessly streaming media from the phone to a compatible TV or computer
  HTC Connect™ 
  Support consumer infrared remote control
  micro-USB 2.0 (5-pin) port with mobile high-definition video link (MHL) for USB or HDMI connection
SOUND: HTC BoomSound™ | Dual frontal stereo speakers with built-in amplifiers | Sense Voice
CAMERA:
  HTC UltraPixel Camera
  BSI sensor, Pixel size 2.0 µm, Sensor size 1/3'
  Dedicated HTC ImageChip™ 2
  f/2.0 aperture and 28 mm lens
  Smart Flash: Five levels of flash automatically set by distance to subject
  1080p Full HD video recording with HDR video
  Front Camera: 2.1 MP, 88° wide angle lens with HDR capability
  Front Camera: 1080p Full HD video recording.  
  HTC Zoe™ with Sequence Shot, Always Smile and Object Removal
  Gallery with Video Highlights and HTC Share
  Continuous shooting and VideoPic
BATTERY: Embedded rechargeable Li-polymer battery | Capacity: 3300 mAh
GPS: GPS/AGPS | Digital Compass
AC ADAPTER: Voltage range/frequency: 100 ~ 240 V AC, 50/60 Hz | DC output: 5 V and 1.5 A

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HTC Sense 5.5 busted! True screenshots of the incoming HTC UI

It's been some time since we have had HTC Sense 5.0 on the market. In the past few weeks this, considered by many as the best Android UI, also has been released for HTC One X and HTC One X+.

We already know for a few months, that HTC has already been working on the next version of their famous UI - HTC Sense 5.5. Some of the Sense 5.5 features are already present in the latest HTC One Android 4.3 build, however they are currently disabled in the framework.

Today, we present to you the first screenshots of the incoming HTC Sense 5.5 interface. If you are going to share this great news, please don't forget to include the source link too!

Home screen - now you can disable or enable HTC BlinkFeed easily.

Android Quick Settings - now you can re-arrange the content of the QS panel.

Improved HTC keyboard with possibility to add more emoticons.

Improved camera - "Dual capture" and "Panorama+", Storage and Recent Apps panel.

New HTC BlinkFeed categories, custom topics tab and minor changes to alarm clock.

Many more changes are of course under the hood, so expect improved performance and overall UI smoothness. Many bugs are also fixed, so the incoming HTC Sense 5.5 should bring a lot of joy for all HTC fans!

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HTC One won "Gadget of the Year" by T3

Since the release date, the HTC One has won almost every smartphone contest. It's won awards on many sites because of its unique design and great performance in conjunction with my favourite Android custom UI - HTC Sense. Now, months after the launch event in London, the HTC One has won yet another slew of awards - T3 Gadget of the Year, T3 Phone of the Year and finally T3 Design Award 2013! We are not hiding the fact that we are not surprised!

"The HTC One is a product designed to save a company in financial trouble – and it seems HTC’s design and engineering team work well with their backs against the wall.

This Android phone is the best product HTC has ever built, with a gorgeously thin, reassuringly rigid aluminium body bonded to the 4.7-inch screen by a technique that doesn't leave a single gap. And speaking of the screen, it’s eyeball-piercingly sharp, with a 1080p full HD resolution and Retina display-spanking pixel density of 468ppi. It’s one of a handful of phones that can be mentioned in the same breath as the iPhone when it comes to looks and build quality.

Performance is no less impressive, with the quad-core processor blazing through tasks with nary a trace of lag and the 4MP Ultrapixel camera serving up some of the finest snaps we've ever seen from a smartphone."

Source: Awards T3

Android Revolution HD in courtesy of HTC is giving away brand new HTC One to the lucky winner of the giveaway #RevolutionChange contest. Don't miss it!

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Android 4.3 for HTC One now available for everyone

As previously promised here, the new Android Revolution HD based on Android 4.3 and HTC Sense 5.0 is ready for everyone to download.

HTC hasn't released yet the international (WWE) update for HTC One, so users with international version of HTC One (M7_UL) are still waiting for Android 4.3 to come. As a workaround, Android Revolution HD is based on recently released Android 4.3 OTA for HTC One "Developer Edition". By checking byte to byte it's quite easy to notice that the software from international edition (401) and developer edition (1540) are almost the same. So instead of waiting for WWE OTA, Android Revolution HD 22.0 has been "WWE-ed", which means it works identically to WWE software. All WWE languages are included.

So, if you don't want to wait for WWE OTA update for your HTC One, please visit this thread and get the latest Android Revolution HD 22.0 with Android 4.3 and HTC Sense 5.0.

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Android 4.3 update for HTC One

HTC One finally received official Android 4.3 Jelly Bean update from HTC. So far the update is available for only 2 CID/MID variants:

• x.xx.709.x for Asia TW (Taiwan) - from 2.24.709.1 to 3.18.709.2
• x.xx.1540.x for Developer Edition - from 1.29.1540.17 to 3.22.1540.1

Both OTA updates are around 550 MB so it's pretty large update. Keep in mind you can't flash particular OTA update on the device with different CID/MID. That said, international users (WWE x.xx.401.x) still needs to wait for proper OTA package.

In a mean time we had some preview of what's coming along with Android 4.3 for HTC One in a leaked 3.17.502.2 software for Cingular US (United States). The reason why x.xx.502.x software was ready in a first place was the release of HTC One blue variant for U.S. AT&T network provider. You can find the latest Android Revolution HD 21.0 based on this software under this link.

If you don't want to wait for WWE update, there might be something special coming today for all HTC One users. Android Revolution HD 22.0 should be available soon in my xda-developers thread under this link.

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Stock system dumps for HTC One & HTC One X

Last two days were very exciting for HTC community, especially for HTC One X users (Android 4.2.2 with HTC Sense 5.0 update described here). However, there is always one problem when it comes to HTC updates - no RUUs (ROM Update Utility) officially available do download for regular users (HTC One Developer Edition and Google Edition seems to be the only exceptions). Why RUU is that important to us?

These executable (.exe) files for MS Windows are installers of complete firmware, including for example system or data partitions. Not having latest RUU means:

1. users using custom ROMs can't download latest OTA from HTC,
2. developers have no system dumps they can work with.

Ad. 1) If you want to download and flash latest OTA, your device must have completely stock system partition and recovery. Every OTA update is checking MD5 of each file on system partition to ensure .apk patch can be applied. If even one of 1000 files won't match, OTA update installation will fail. In this case you need to flash the latest official update you can find (even one year old) and later download official OTA updates.

Ad. 2) There are few workarounds, however none of them is as good as having a RUU:

• adb pull /system in custom recovery mode*
• cp /system /data/media/dump in custom recovery mode*
• nandroid backup
• boot partition can be taken from inside firmware.zip inside OTA .zip package or it can be dumped using dd if=</path/to/boot/partition> of=/data/media/boot.img

* adb pull, cp or dd commands must be executed from custom recovery mode, otherwise system dump will be missing few important files or these files will have 0kb size. Also, keep in mind that adb features are heavily limited on stock un-rooted device. In case of dd command, root access (su) is needed to make such operation.

That's why I created my own stock system dumps (as a custom recovery .zip packages) for both HTC One and HTC One X. I believe this can save a lot of time for many XDA users and developers.

HTC One thread - HTC One *STOCK* ROM | 2.24.401.8 | Jelly Bean | HTC Sense 5

HTC One X thread - HTC One X *STOCK* ROM | 4.18.401.2 | Jelly Bean | HTC Sense 5.0

Download links can be found on this blog, under Downloads section - Downloads

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HTC One X with Android 4.2.2 & HTC Sense 5.0 update

HTC One X is one of the very few (if not the only one) devices from HTC which reached 4.xx.xxx.x software version (4.18.491.2). This only proves how great this device still is and how many users are still actively using it. Today HTC One X users are receiving one of the most important update - Android 4.2.2 with HTC Sense 5.0. Last summer HTC did similar update, upgrading HTC One X with Android 4.1.1 from Android 4.0.4 and bumping HTC Sense from 4.0 to so called "4+". However, HTC Sense 4.0/4+ update wasn't that significant and didn't bring so many new features and improvements as HTC Sense 5.0.

The new update includes well known HTC BlinkFeed™ (available firstly only on HTC One), native Android Quick Settings and completely re-designed HTC Sense interface. Two features are missing from HTC One - HTC BoomSound™ and HTC Zoe™. Unfortunately, both are hardware related. BoomSound™ obviously needs dual speakers audio system, and HTC Zoe™ was created to work with small pictures taken with UltraPixel camera - which allows user to take excellent pictures in natural conditions using only 4 mega pixels resolution in pair with dedicated HTC ImageChip™ 2.








As you can see, there is a changelog attached to the OTA notification, however it is just a "commercial" changelog - that means there are a lot of different changes/improvements under the hood. Android 4.2.2 update brought a lot of changes itself, not to mention new HTC Sense 5.0 features, further optimization in SoC drivers and kernel related improvements.

The new update for HTC One X looks great and surely will bring some fresh air to the device. HTC One X+ already received HTC Sense 5.0 update few days ago, however it was only Taiwanese update so far. Below you can see HTC BlinkFeed screen together with Android Quick Settings on latest HTC One X 4.18.401.2 software.

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