First off, some delicious screenshots grabbed from xda-developers:
Ok, I would like to say, this is a beta version. Some things do not work. Do not ask how to install this, because I do not feel like answering questions when something goes wrong. If you’re thirsty for this, go hang out over at xda-developers and follow the threads. That said, let’s get to the juicy bits.
In addition to all the wonderful things that are packed with the G1 cupcake, this version (still 1.5) has some additional goodies that you won’t be seeing from T-Mobile or Rogers. These is pure HTC additions from what I can tell. This is also probably pretty close to what we’ll be seeing on the HTC Hero when it’s released, rumored to be locked in exclusively to Orange.
I’ll try to keep this short, since this isn’t meant to be an in-depth review.
Some key features:
- There is no “Rosie” included. No word on if it will come as part of the complete OS when the Hero ships. But this may be part of the Personalize section in the Settings that I could see, but nothing in it worked. (“Choose a lifestyle to set widget layout”)
- 5 Home screens.
- Much longer initial setup, including choosing language and setup of Exchange accounts and Twitter, Facebook and Flickr.
- The previous mentioned Social Network services are integrated in with your contacts for getting their updates and sharing items. It matches Facebook friends to your contacts and you can link pictures and birthdays. View Facebook status updates straight from you Android phonebook! I could not get the Twitter or Flickr to work.
- Contacts is now People. Visual makeover. Scrolling has that iPhone “bounce” effect. There’s a cool slider bar at the bottom to check messages, email, updates & events, FaceBook and Flickr photos, and of course call history.
- Text messaging: A bit of a visual makeover here. A nice Compose Message button at the top of your conversations list. And I’m really digging the fact that it uses the contact icon next to the message.
- Calendar: Another awesome visual makeover. Looks a lot better than the old version. There’s a screenshot floating around, you know the one that uses the iPhone icon, yeah, it’s there.
- Dialer is the one from the other HTC roms that we’ve seen coming from Haykuro with a couple of tweak, nothing major here.
- Lock screen shows the current open app behind it instead of wallpaper. You can also choose lockscreen wallpaper, but that feature was broken.
- HTC Footprints app is included and working fine for me. Geotag photos and save your favorite places.
- Music player makeover with album artwork and slick working “swipe to switch tracks” interface. I love this feature.
- The web browser: Ooh, the browser. Little tweaks to the location bar and loading bar, all these minor tweaks make the whole phone feel much more polished. The bookmarks are what people are gonna love. No more boring list of URLs, now you have small preview pages “Visual Bookmarks” ans it’s named, and you can swipe sideways to scroll through. Also the same when switching between browser windows. Very cool stuff here. Full-screen browsing. Zooming of any sort did not seem to work in this build.
- Option in the Settings to calibrate the G-Sensor.
- Option to auto-download firmware, prompt, or never download.
Well, that’s about all I have. It’s 7:00amEST and I’ve been up all night. I’m going to keep playing with this and maybe post more. At the very least more screenshots. Tell me what you want to see!
Update: Yes, I know this isn’t finished. And those of you that follow xda closely will know exactly what’s going on. I just report the news, I don’t make it. The kids just want to see what all the fuss is about.
