Taking a small stage in San Francisco’s Potrero Hill neighborhood, Google’s Sundar Pichai introduced the Chromebook Pixel, the company’s attempt to “rethink everything” in terms of laptop design. We can’t say that the touchscreen notebook is a stark departure from the category’s norm, but it certainly feels like a solid piece of kit. Weighing in at 3.35 pounds, the Chromebook Pixel’s unibody frame looks and feels somewhat like a MacBook Pro — flanking a comfortable chicklet keyboard and a luxuriously large trackpad with a small dip at its south end. The usual bevy of navigation and control keys headline the keyboard, and the machine’s left side is populated by a Mini DisplayPort port, a power plug and two USB 2.0 plugs. The right edge houses an SD / MMC card reader and, well nothing else. The Pixel is a minimalist machine, and it both looks and feels good for the subtlety of design.
The machine’s real star is its 12-inch, 3:2 display. True to Google’s word, the screen is gorgeous, and makes full use of that 2,560 x 1,700 resolution. Photos pop, text is crystal clear and at 400-nits, everything is stunningly bright. At first swipe, it seems to be a capable touchscreen too — in the few minutes we had with the device, we didn’t have any trouble flicking our way through Engadget’s news roll, though the traditional trackpad still feels more natural at this stage. Still, everything we did was comfortable, eye-catching and rather quick, thanks, no doubt, to the Pixel’s Intel Core-i5 processer. First impressions? Very solid, and possibly the finest Chromebook yet — but at $1,299 for WiFi and $1,449 for LTE, it had better be. Skip on past the break for a hands-on video and a second hand look at the Pixel’s high resolution display.
Thought Google Glass cost a pretty penny? Well, try this head-mounted display on for size. It’s that Mixed Reality wearable from Canon that we’ve been hearing so much about. As previously noted, it’s set to hit the States the first of next month, carrying a decidedly gigantic $125,000 price tag (plus an estimated $25,000 in annual maintenance). But before you go writing a brashly worded letter to the bigwigs at Canon, remember: this isn’t really for you. That is, unless you’re an automotive manufacturer, research university or museum display curator. This is a heavy-duty, industry-facing device.
That said, the camera maker did give a few of us non-industry folks the chance to play around with the display at an event in Manhattan last night, while the rest of the tech world was fawning over that fancy new PlayStation thingamabob. Having spent some time with Sony’s HMZ-T1, we’ve got to say that the experience of wearing this far, far more high-end product wasn’t all that different from a hardware perspective: slip it over your head, place it on the bridge of your nose and tighten. It’s possible to get it snug without being too uncomfortable — and when it’s time to take it off, a flip of the lever will remove it in one go.
Ubuntu’s Touch Developer Preview was originally put forward as something for “enthusiasts” as well as developers. Well, having been hands-on with the code that will be made public tomorrow, we’d say it requires enthusiasm a-plenty — perhaps even amateur coder quantities of the stuff. That’s because a lot of core functionality is still missing from the OS, such as the ability to play music files or import real-life contacts, and there’s a long way to go if it’s to be signed off as “code complete” in October.
On the other hand, this is really just a statement of the obvious. Canonical has been pretty clear that the main purpose of this early release is to lure in developers and get them to contribute to the fundamental stages of the project. Furthermore, the video after the break shows that there are many aspects of the OS which work fine — such as the gallery and video apps, the “side stage” and HUD features, and also general performance on the Nexus 10‘s hardware. The UI merges some Kindle- and Windows 8-esque features with things that are totally original — like responsive design which allows the exact same OS and apps to run on a phone, tablet, TV or desktop. We certainly hope it generates interest — not only among developers but also among device manufacturers who want to do more than just talk about differentiation.
Today SwiftKey 4 has been revealed, integrating the abilities of what we’ve seen very recently with the beta of SwiftKey Flow and a collection of new features we’ve never seen before. What this app represents is a next-level Android-based on-screen keyboard experience, complete with word predictions, a multi-tiered learning interface, and now the ability to “flow” from key to key for typing without ever lifting a finger.
In the first big ad spot for this new version of SwiftKey, you’ll see each of the new amazing features available with the system. Here you’ll see examples of the 60 languages you can have active at once, you’ll see the several different keyboard skins you can use, and you’ll see the fabulous Flow of words being typed with a multi-colored trail of accuracy following your finger. This system continues to use an ever-upgrading award-winning prediction engine unique to SwiftKey to learn the language you use in a unique way.
We’ve also got a rather simple demonstration of flowing in-action on an Android device. At the moment this software is, yes, available only on Android devices, and most certainly does make your Android experience a much more readable one. While we don’t use the prediction engine as much as we could have in the demo, keep an eye on it – it’s smart! SwiftKey’s learning engine connects with Gmail, Facebook, SMS, and more to follow what you type, understanding and archiving it all away so it knows what you’ll type next – you type the same stuff all the time!
Again at this point you should note that there’s only one app, with SwiftKey Flow being a feature of SwifKey 4 – you’ll be downloading SwiftKey 4 soon! SwiftKey 4 offers several different ways to type with SwiftKey Flow – one of them being the three SwiftKey Flow Candidates you get when you hit backspace after you’ve completed a word – three options for alternate words are given. Candidates are also given if you tap any word you’ve completed in the past.
Another feature in SwiftKey Flow typing in SwiftKey 4 is mid-word completion, allowing you to see word predictions and let your finger up from the screen before you’ve completed the word – see what you need, just lift your finger! After you’ve typed (or had predicted) a word in a sentence, you’ll also see next-word predictions based on your language patterns. You can type whole sentences with just predictions based on what you’ve said in the past!
Berry flavor included – tasty!
The style you use to type is also automatically selected in this release. In the past with SwiftKey you were asked to select either “rapid” or “precise” – now all that’s done for you. The 60 languages mentioned above includes a selection of additions made new in this release: Sudanese, Thai, Vietnamese, Albanian, Bosnian, and Javanese. Layouts have also been improved on the keyboard for both Russian and Korean language sets.
You’ll be able to download SwiftKey 4 and SwiftKey Tablet 4 from the Google Play app store inside the SwiftKey section – apps developed by the official SwiftKey team. If you’re a legacy user, you’ll find that SwiftKey will upgrade to SwiftKey 4 for free. If you’re a new user, a promotional price of $1.99 USD has been placed on the app for a limited time – grab it right this minute!
SwiftKey has been promising its own answer to Swype ever since it launched the SwiftKey Flow beta late last year, and the company’s retort is at last finished. The newly available SwiftKey 4 — Flow is just a component here — brings Android writers the promised gesture-based typing along with Flow Through Space, which lets users glide to the spacebar to keep typing rather than pause after every word. The upgrade also expands contextual word prediction to 60 languages, offers simpler corrections and watches for personal typing habits to adjust accordingly — it should learn whether you’re a hunt-and-peck newcomer or a seasoned pro blazing along with both thumbs. The update is free for existing users in both phone- and tablet-sized forms, and it’s temporarily priced at $2 (normally $4) to lure in anyone who isn’t happy with their existing input methods.
We gave the final version a spin on a Galaxy Nexus, and much of what we saw in the SwiftKey Flow beta holds true with SwiftKey 4. Anyone comfy with a gesture-based keyboard will be happy with the speed and accuracy here, especially when they don’t have to lift their finger between words. However, the previous quirks remain as well: Flow Through Space tends to melt down after a few words, so you’ll want to stop after “the quick brown fox” before you finish with “jumps over the lazy dog.” The style recognition is harder to gauge when this author is an an experienced user who’s only had a short while to teach the app any tricks, but the simplified corrections are handy for quickly polishing up a sentence. While we don’t feel that SwiftKey is orchestrating a revolution with version 4, it doesn’t have to — the appeal here is not having to give up SwiftKey’s generally well-regarded feel to get a feature previously reserved for competitors. It remains our go-to keyboard for those times we don’t like what Google or phone designers have to offer.
SAN FRANCISCO — February 20, 2013 – SwiftKey 4 launches today on Google Play with smarter features that make typing on a touchscreen faster, easier and more accurate. Available now at the promo price of $1.99 and as a free upgrade for existing users, the new release features a unique take on gesture typing called SwiftKey Flow.
SwiftKey Flow combines the mind-reading capabilities of SwiftKey’s personalized autocorrect engine with the speed of gliding your fingers across the screen. This revolutionary approach to continuous input begins predicting words from the moment a user touches the screen and goes on to predict their next word when they let go. A unique feature called ‘Flow Through Space’ also makes gesture typing more powerful than ever before by allowing users to enter entire phrases simply by gliding to the space bar between words.
SwiftKey 4 adds to everything that has made the app a bestseller since first launching in 2010. Users can still tap to type, the app constantly learns a user’s style to ease the frustration of entering long words and users can further personalize predictions by granting access to their Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, SMS or blog posts.
“Everyone’s had embarrassing autocorrect moments,” said Ben Medlock, SwiftKey co-founder and CTO. “That’s why we built SwiftKey to understand the context of words, not just their spelling. It works from the word go to adjust to you – from the phrases you write to how you touch the screen. It means you don’t have to worry about typing, it does all the hard work for you.”
The new features in SwiftKey 4 include:
* SwiftKey Flow – blending SwiftKey’s mind-reading next-word prediction and autocorrect with the speed of gesture typing * Flow Through Space – lets users write entire sentences in one motion without ever having to lift their finger to add a space * Support for contextual prediction across 60 languages – with new support for Albanian, Bosnian, Javanese, Sundanese, Thai and Vietnamese, all with dynamic auto-correction and next word prediction * Easier corrections – tap on a word and SwiftKey 4 will move the cursor to the end of the word and offer two alternatives * Personalized typing style – whether you write inaccurately with two thumbs or more carefully using a single finger, SwiftKey 4 now automatically adapts to how users type to provide more insightful corrections and prediction
Beta versions of the app have been tested by more than 200,000 SwiftKey fans over the last 11 weeks, with more than 2.4 billion characters flowed. A No.1 best-selling app on Google Play in 38 countries, SwiftKey is available in 60 languages and counting. For more information about SwiftKey, visit www.swiftkey.net.
This week we’ve had the opportunity to have a look at the new HTC One with not only a collection of hands-on experiences, but with processor benchmarking as well. Using the standard Quadrant Benchmark test here we’re finding that the Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 quad-core processor is blowing up the charts, destroying the previous high-mark in the basic readout by more than double – those tiny towers on the left are what’s left of the original HTC One X, the ASUS Transformer Prim TF201 (with a Tegra 3 processor), and some lesser beings. Even compared with the Snapdragon S4 Pro quad-core SoC running on the Google Nexus 4 only reaches nearly 5000 as a final score in Quadrant – the HTC One reaches 12,417!
Comparing the individual markers inside the total you’ll find a CPU score of 37,304, Memory at 10,922, and I/O at a staggering 10,566. Those are massive scores, on all accounts. The Nexus 4 comes in at CPU: 10,687, Mem: 7,612, and I/O: 4,340 if you’d like to know. With the HTC One’s combination of four Krait 300 CPU cores at 1.7GHz, an Adreno 320 GPU, and a performance boost well over the Snapdragon S4 Pro, this will very likely be the most impressive smartphone processor-wise you’ll have ever experienced.
We’ve also had a look at Sunspider working with the standard web browser on the device. Here we get a lovely 1195.2ms as a final result, this compared with the HTC One X+ (1215.4ms) and the Samsung Galaxy S III (1082.2ms) shows that web browsing is pretty much the same as it’s been over the past year. Then again – as above – this is not final software and anything could happen before the HTC One is released inside March, 2013. It should also be noted that the speed of the rendering on the HTC One (as well as the others here) were done at different times and under different conditions – so take it all with a bit of straw.
Also have a peek at our timeline below filled with hands-on experiences with the HTC One, complete with details from each of this device’s new features. With the HTC One, the company may well be entering a new age. One in which a single device really, truly is the hero – could it possibly be?
So, after months of leaks and speculation, HTC has finally revealed the HTC One. To say it’s an important device for HTC is an understatement given the rough seas the company spent nearly all of last year navigating, but the people here seem confident that they’ve worked up a winner. Just after the event wrapped I managed to get some extended hands-on time with the One, and the thing left some strong first impressions (not all of them good).
I’ve already alluded to just how nice the One feels in my hand, but I feel that it’s worth repeating — HTC has done a bang-up job in terms of industrial design. It feels remarkably solid without being unwieldy thanks to its tapered unibody aluminum frame and its relatively modest 4.7-inch display. What’s more, the near-total absence of gaps in the body helps solidify the One’s position as a premium smartphone. Giving HTC points for design prowess is nothing new though. The company has proven time and again that it knows how to make handsome hardware. Anything less at this point would be a step backward, and one that HTC can ill afford.
Sadly, for a device that puts a lot of emphasis on the camera, there’s no physical shutter button. A minor omission sure, and one that HTC has justified by saying that it had done away with excess design flourishes, but one I strongly disagree with. Speaking of omissions, the One only sports two softkeys — a home button and a back button. HTC’s Jeff Gordon told TechCrunch that people just didn’t use the other recent apps button very often (for the record, you can now bring up a grid of running apps by double-tapping the home key).
The 4.7-inch 1080p Super LCD3 panel was impressive in terms of clarity and color reproduction, and as you’d expect it’s damned near impossible to pick out any individual pixels. Brightness seemed more than adequate in this dark warehouse on the west side, but the Droid DNA’s display couldn’t crank up as high as those seen on other devices — I’m waiting to spend some time with the One in daylight before I pass judgment.
As far as the camera goes, it’s difficult to discern just how good the images captured by HTC’s Ultrapixel sensor without dumping them onto a computer for further inspection, but early results seemed promising. The lighting around here (as you could probably tell by some of the stills I took) is downright atrocious, but the One was able to capture some pretty sharp images without much grain getting in the way. I’m looking forward to getting my hands on a review unit and really putting this camera through its paces.
Perhaps one of the weirdest things seen on the One is the camera’s Zoe feature — the idea is that users will take three-second video clips and share them with friends and family. Sound familiar? HTC’s Gordon told TechCrunch that Zoe was in development long before Twitter’s Vine hit the scene, but it’s hard not to draw parallels between the two. Switching into Zoe mode took a single tap, and recording was a snap (neat touch:it actually starts recording 0.6 seconds before you press the button) but I’m just not sure why HTC needed this to exist. Couple that with the fact that HTC will only store Zoes online for 180 days and you’ve got all the makings for a non-starter of a feature.
And then there’s the software. Sense 5 is a drastic departure from HTC’s older UIs, and in some ways it’s awfully spartan in comparison. There’s lots of space to be found here (the app launcher only had three columns on these demo units), and the components under the hood help ensure that swiping through apps, scrolling down webpages, and bouncing in and out of BlinkFeed is seamless.
Ah, BlinkFeed — its inclusion is one of those curious decisions that seems like it could go either way. HTC’s rationale was that people use their smartphones primarily to devour content, and BlinkFeed was designed to keep as few hurdles between the two as possible. After swiping though the activity stream, I could see the value in having this customizable firehose (especially after taking the time to customize those content sources), but I wonder how many people walking through a big-box store mulling over another two-year contract will see what I did. Hiding the more standard Android homescreens is a gutsy move, but we’ll soon see how it all plays out.
What remains to be seen is simply whether or not the One can effectively put up a fight against devices like the iPhone 5 and Samsung’s fast-approaching Galaxy S IV. Goodness knows that HTC could really use a big win, and the HTC One certainly pushes plenty of the right buttons. It’s too early to say if it manages to push enough of those buttons, but from what I’ve seen, One seems like a device that’s poised to make a real splash come March.
After months of rumors and leaks, the HTC was finally unveiled today at a press event in New York City this morning. HTC put a lot of thought and work into their next smartphone which they’re considering to be a device that is busting at the seams with premium quality.
The HTC One is the first device manufactured by HTC to use a matte aluminum finish, and it definitely gives the device the sense of premium the company was going for. The device feels great in the hand and is light, but it can slip easily around your hand due to the matte aluminum finish. The sides of the device have a white thin plastic as well as a portion of the back that offers a nice break in the all aluminum phone. The plastic outline also helps in catching onto your hand so the phone doesn’t completely fall out of your hands. Aside from the occasional slipping, the HTC One doesn’t feel like most phones would as the brushed aluminum really feels slick in your hand.
If the 4-megapixel camera is HTC’s big play with the One‘s hardware, HTC BlinkFeed is its big software play on the new flagship. A new homescreen for Sense 5, BlinkFeed works as a smorgasbord for “snackable” content – as HTC envisages it, the sort of instant gratification people are looking for when they whip their phone out in an idle moment. That happens more often than you might think, too; HTC’s research among its own users found they woke their phone up a couple of hundred times a day. Read on for full details and our first impressions, plus more on Sense 5 and the new universal remote TV app.
BlinkFeed works like Flipboard, collating content from online news sources, social networks, and apps on the phone into a single timeline. At first we were concerned that it would be just another FriendStream – which was an interesting attempt to bring together Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr updates, but inevitably lost out to the native apps – but HTC is keen to stress that it’s merely a launching point: news stories open in the browser (though HTC tells us it’s working with content providers to enable opening links in their native Android apps, where available); Facebook links in the Facebook app; Twitter links in the Twitter client. So far there’s no way to change from the default apps – annoying if you’re one of the many unimpressed with Twitter’s own software for Android – though, again, that’s in the pipeline.
There’s a combination of local and server-side processing going on to make BlinkFeed work smoothly. HTC is sifting through 1,000s of content providers in each geographical region – One owners will be able to pick either which categories they want to see, or which providers, or both – with display order using a mixture of chronology and an algorithm that spots interesting or important stories to include. Only the image and the headline is downloaded initially, to save data (BlinkFeed also favors against articles with no image), though HTC is working on offline caching for those times you’re in the mood for a data snack but don’t currently have service.
Like Zoe photography, BlinkFeed has some glaring gaps in its launch version. Google+ content isn’t included – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Flick are – and neither are Google Now cards and suggestions. HTC is working on the former and says it “would like [BlinkFeed] to” feature Google Now eventually, though it’s not clear how quickly that might happen. There’ll be an SDK for third-party apps to push their content into BlinkFeed, though no way for the user to add their own RSS subscriptions, at least at first. HTC has built a special landscape orientation layout of BlinkFeed, for when the One is wirelessly streaming content to a TV through an HTC MediaLink, but on the phone itself it only shows up in portrait orientation.
Of course, BlinkFeed isn’t the only change to Sense in version five. While it’s the new default homescreen, you can also set a more traditional Android desktop as your point of origin, though HTC tells us its research suggests the widget-filled span of panels it thought people were using isn’t actually so common. In fact, 35-percent of people apparently only use a single home panel, while 80-percent customize their homescreen during the first month and then never subsequently change it. The weather, clock, and a music control are the only really commonly used widgets, HTC discovered.
So, the One has two desktop panels by default (though you can add more) and HTC envisages users spending equally as much time in the app launcher, which now includes a weather widget and a choice of 3×3 or 4×5 grid layout. Folders are included, and indeed HTC’s pre-configuration of the One will organize all the preloaded apps into just two app launcher panes. There’s also been some behind-the-scenes work with carriers, to try to limit how much bloatware they add to the One; if HTC’s negotiations go as intended, all the carrier apps will be at least corralled into a single folder out of the box.
Everything else has been given a refresh too. The old tabbed interface language has gone, replaced by side-swiped panes that fit in with Google’s own pivot guidelines, and HTC has sliced away some of the less-used buttons so as to keep the UI cleaner. Interestingly, if you haven’t tried one of the new headline features – such as Zoe photography – the One will be able to suggest you give it a go, by sliding a notification into BlinkFeed. The keyboard still uses XT9 prediction, but the layout is tidier, with less space between the keys; there’s also a new lock screen which can by unlocked by either sliding up the lock icon itself or the time masthead. You can still jump directly into one of four apps by pulling up the shortcut icons along the bottom row.
What the lock screen doesn’t get is BlinkFeed content, though HTC hinted to us that it might make an appearance there one day. Nor can you get to Google Now without unlocking the phone, though access is allowed to the camera (to take photos, not review them or do anything else). Pressing and holding the power button allows you to switch into “kid mode” powered by HTC acquisition Zoodles. For drivers, there’s a new Car Mode with a more intuitive, finger-friendly UI, simplified dialler, and stripped-back music player. HTC will offer a passive car cradle for the One, which clings via suction to the windshield (and has a simple hole to give access to the phone’s microUSB port).
HTC is also particularly proud of its new online setup system, replacing the original – and under-utilized – Sense Online service. The company’s thinking is simple: an increasing number of phones are bought online, and so now new customers will be able to begin setting up their handset straight after clicking “purchase” rather than having to wait for the delivery to show up.
It’s a comprehensive system from the outset, with the ability to set up feeds for BlinkFeed, bookmarks for sites, pick different apps and games (all of which download through Google Play, so that future updates will work as normal), and other settings. Since that could be overwhelming to some, HTC has bundled select packages of apps and content into “Starting Points” such as if you’re planning to use your phone for work, or with your family. There are instant previews of what the BlinkFeed will look like with those particular settings, and you can even set ringtones or make your own, uploading an MP3 and then clipping out the section you want.
Rather than demand an HTC account be specially created (though you can do that, if you prefer), HTC is using Facebook Connect so that owners can log in via their existing social network credentials. When your new One finally arrives, you simply punch in that username and password during the wizard, and everything is installed as per your web arrangements. It works in tandem with a new version of HTC Sync Manager, which can now pull in contacts, calendar entries, photos & video, non-DRM music, and bookmarks from your most recent iPhone backup in iTunes; for Android devices, it can suck out contacts, calendar, SMS, photos & video, non-DRM music, bookmarks, and (select settings). HTC is struggling to get the same access with Windows Phone, however, and right now – just as with feature-phones – you can only transfer your contacts via a Bluetooth connection.
The flip side of the new setup system is backup, which HTC says can be set to run daily (over a WiFi connection) automatically, or alternatively manually when the user prefers. Rather than store photos and video – which, HTC told us, are generally well catered for with online gallery services – the new backup system focuses on the rest of the customizations owners tend to make. So, all of your BlinkFeed settings are stored, as well as the app grid layout (complete with folders), alarms, wallpaper, native and third-party widgets, the user dictionary, apps, and over 150 settings (more than 80-percent of which are HTC-specific).
They all get encrypted on the One before being pushed to either Dropbox – you get 25GB of free space for two years when you activate the phone – or, if you’re in China, Sina web storage. HTC is still looking at ways to backup individual app data and Zoe content, which are currently left out.
Then there’s the TV app, which uses the deeply clever hidden IR blaster discretely integrated into the power button on the top edge. The app itself is powered by Peel, which we’ve also seen preloaded on select Samsung tablets: after you run through a setup wizard, telling the app which area you live in, what type of TV service you get – DirecTV, cable, free-to-air, etc. – and what TV you have, you get a BlinkFeed-style page of currently-playing shows, a single tap on which switches to that channel.
If you leave the app running, picking up the phone automatically unlocks it so you can flip channels again (rather than demanding you manually unlock it and punch in your PIN; if you have a PIN set up, as with the camera app, you only get access to the TV app in that case). A shortcut is added to the Android notifications bar, too, with buttons to flip to what shows you’ve been watching recently, plus quick access to mute, power, opening the full remote, and more.
As universal remotes go, it’s pretty flexible, certainly for the basics. The tutorial section – if your TV is recognized – is swift, but programming non-default sets is a case of a few button presses, since the IR blaster can also learn from your existing remote. Each of the show thumbnails has a discrete progress bar along the bottom, indicating how much is left, and you can either tap in and see more information, or swipe to the next pane and see what’s coming up next. Search is supported, too, and you can dig into the settings and optionally choose which channels show up and which are hidden; if you favorite a show, the TV app will push a notification into BlinkFeed next time a new episode is coming up, and those shows and channels are automatically prioritized in the lists.
Nonetheless, it’s still early days. The TV app doesn’t know what’s on your TiVo or other DVR, so you can’t see recorded options alongside live shows, and for the moment – though HTC tells us it’s working on it – there’s no intelligence around the placement of shows and channels. They only get prioritized if you manually favorite them: the app won’t learn from your viewing habits, and it won’t make Netflix-style suggestions based on your viewing history.
Speaking of Netflix, the on-demand integration could also do with some work. In fact, Netflix isn’t even supported at present – HTC is still working with the company to include it – but you do get Hulu, Crackle, and HTC Watch, among some others. It’s all a bit more klutzy than changing channels on your cable box, however: if you have an HTC MediaLink, you can have the TV app switch you automatically to whatever on-demand show you’ve selected, but otherwise tapping it opens playback locally on the One itself. HTC tells us that select media boxes will also switch over, but it’s not entirely clear which will support the system and which won’t.
HTC has high ambitions for TV, however, and has said it will be pushing out updates to refine the experience. It’ll also be opening up the hardware to third-party developers: Android lacks a standard IR blaster API, so HTC is cooking up an SDK of its own instead. The company will also be contacting select developers to try to promote that SDK when it’s available.
Overall, though, this is undoubtedly the best version of Sense we’ve seen on an HTC device, and in a way it takes us some way back to the original premise of the software. Not just a reskin of Android, as it had become in its more recent iterations, but delivering new apps and features, and actually attempting to streamline elements of the phone experience into something that delivers more everyday usability.
Whether it succeeds at that will depend on how committed HTC is to progressively refining the software. That’s where the company has fallen flat before – remember OnLive integration, or the old Sense Online? – though the ability to make piecemeal app upgrades should help there, assuming the engineers do their job. If HTC can be as responsive as third-party developers then the native apps on the HTC One could end up staying the course.
HTC’s most controversial decision with the HTC One is going to be the choice of camera. In a market where “more” is so often seen as “better” the 4-megapixel equivalent main camera on the back of the One is going to raise eyebrows, no matter how hard HTC pushes its “UltraPixel” branding. Assuming the company can get would-be users to pay attention to the theory, though, there’s a whole lot to like about the UltraPixel approach: increasing the amount of data for each pixel that makes up the final frame.
Unlike Nokia’s original 808 PureView], the One doesn’t use over-sampling. Nokia’s system created roughly 5-megapixel shots from a vast 41-megapixel sensor, taking the “average” data from clumps of multiple pixels for more accurate images, and ironing out glitches along the way. The downside to that is you need a bulky phone to physically accommodate a high-megapixel sensor, something that simply wouldn’t fit into the HTC One’s slender frame.
Instead, HTC’s custom-made camera sensor has individual pixels that are bigger than what you’d find in a typical flagship smartphone. In fact, the array is made up of pixels 2 micrometers to a side; in contrast, an 8-megapixel phone sensor, such as the one used in HTC’s own One X, is more likely to use 1.2 micrometer pixels. Bigger pixels mean more room for light information to hit the sensor: more light means more accurate final shots, as well as the possibility of faster shutter speeds even in low-light settings. That reduces camera-blur (and is helped by the One’s optical image stabilization, which controls pitch and yaw shake at 2,000 Hz).
When rivals like Sony are stepping up to 13-megapixel cameras on their new flagships, HTC’s 4-megapixels seems an odd choice. However, the One’s camera gathers up in excess of 313-percent of the light a 13-megapixel camera can squeeze through to its tiny pixels; in fact, the One’s pixel size is bigger than that of Samsung’s Galaxy Camera and Canon’s S100 point-and-shoot.
That data gets pushed to HTC’s new ImageChip 2 – another custom part – which does its digital finessing on RAW data before JPEG conversion (most phones convert first, then process, which is less computationally demanding). There’s lens compensation to adjust for any aberration of the f/2.0 optics, along with de-noise processing and ghosting reduction; the One supports continuous autofocus, with the camera locking in under 200ms, and uses dual-path encoding for simultaneous Full HD video capture and full-resolution photos (at up to 5fps) spitting out 1080p H.264 footage and 2688 x 1520 16:9 JPEGs at the other end.
Does it work? It certainly looks that way, even in the prototype One handsets running non-final firmware we had the opportunity to use. Low-light shots are easily the most impressive: side by side with a Galaxy S III and an iPhone 5, the One captured images in a darkened room that were still clearly visible (though not artificially lit, as when you use an LED flash) while the Apple shots were murky. The shots from the Samsung, meanwhile, were basically frames of dark murk, with nothing visible. That the One’s are lower resolution than either of the other phones can produce is, frankly, irrelevant: you’d only be hitting delete on the larger pictures anyway.
Yet it’s when put into context with the new HTC Sense 5 and, specifically, HTC’s “Zoe” photography features that the UltraPixel technology – and its ability to capture photos and video simultaneously – makes most sense. Zoe takes more than a little explaining (and as such is likely to be the second most misunderstood element of the One experience among consumers at retail) but, as HTC told us, it’s basically “TiVo for your life.”
Photos, HTC explained, are easy to shoot, but only capture a static moment in time; they lose out on valuable context, which is missed altogether when you go back and review them later. Zoe content – the name deriving from the zoetrope, an ancient device for creating moving pictures from rapidly spinning stills, and from the Greek for “alive” – anticipates the convergence of photo and video, however, using the One’s photographic prowess to snatch both stills and footage at the same time.
Hit the Zoe mode icon on the left of the redesigned camera app UI, and when you tap the on-screen photo button it progressively changes from grey to red over the course of around three seconds. During that time, it’s snapping fifteen still frames as well as Full HD video; they’re combined with the five stills and 0.6s of footage from just before you hit the button, and packaged up into what HTC refers to as “a Zoe.”
So, when you browse through the Event folders in the One’s gallery app, you see small animated Zoe thumbnails looping through the 3.6s clips. Alternatively, you can scroll through the twenty photos making up each Zoe, with various effects and tweaks to be made. These range from the Instagram-style basic, applying colored filters and such, to more complex real-time effects.
You can create a sequence shot, for instance, joining the action from four images into a single frame, or use face-recognition to take the best expressions from multiple images and combine them into one frame (similar to the Scalado-based technology BlackBerry 10 and Nokia’s Windows Phones use, though HTC tells us it’s a home-grown alternative). There’s also object removal, and the face-recognition means the One can automatically identify eyes and selectively whiten them (if there are multiple people in the same frame, the phone asks which you want to edit), enlarge them, or smooth out skin tones.
At the top of each Event view there’s what HTC calls the “highlight reel”: a 30 second edit containing chopped up content from the stills, videos, and Zoe clips from that event. The One creates these on-the-fly, identifying what it believes are the most interesting parts of any video – i.e. where there’s action, or faces showing – into an instantly-sharable snapshot of that collection. The cuts themselves can’t be manually changed, but there’s a “Remix” button that automatically triggers a new assembly, and a choice of six themes which each have their own visual style, overall mood, and background music. Eventually, HTC intends to offer more themes, as well as the ability to load your own backing track.
Content that’s included in the highlight reel is usually automatically selected, but the One’s “smart curation” bases its choices, in part, on how often you’ve looked at specific photos, how you’ve rated them, and other meta-knowledge so as to educate the cuts it makes. Alternatively, you can select which photos, videos, and Zoeys get included, and merge different Events to give the phone more content to choose from; the One is clever enough to discard the first couple of milliseconds of the beginning of each Zoe clip, when you’re likely to have experienced some camera shake.
It feels, admittedly, like a gimmick at first. Then again, so did Instagram, and look how that caught on: HTC picked thirty second highlights as it felt people wouldn’t watch anything longer, and we can see that being the case. The time-investment to watch through a half-minute showreel is minimal, and the immediacy of the system is worlds away from the generally clunky phone video editing apps other manufacturers are pushing.
Zoe and the highlight reel concept is still pretty raw, of course. Manual settings perhaps aren’t in keeping with the “smart curation” idea, but we’d like a little more control over cuts and highlights; similarly, some sort of Remix history would be a nice addition, since right now it’s only luck as to whether you get a better mash-up than you already have. A Zoe API for third-party apps to integrate with Zoe, or to offer their own extras, is in the pipeline, but likely won’t be ready for the One’s release.
It’s the Zoe Share service – an online gallery of highlight reels and select Zoe content – that we find most frustrating, though, at least in its first iteration. Getting videos there, and keeping them there, are both flawed processes: for instance, at the moment Zoe only outputs highlight videos in Full HD resolution (think 12-20MB apiece depending on footage) which means uploads aren’t quite as snappy as creating the MP4 itself is. Meanwhile, HTC has decided to only store uploaded Zoe collections for thirty days: after that time, they’re automatically deleted.
That, the company argues, is a concession to making Zoe Share a free service: with webspace so cheap – Dropbox is giving all One buyers 25GB free, in fact – we’d argue HTC loses more in goodwill than it saves in hosting fees. If I’m taking the time (and potentially paying the data charges) to upload a chunk of photo and video content, I probably want to know it’s going to last for longer than a month.
Changes may well be afoot, though, to address some of our concerns. HTC told us that it’s testing out different output resolutions, thus decreasing file size and making it faster to share Zoe content. At the moment, individual stills can be saved from Zoe Share, but HTC is looking at more comprehensive archiving options for entire Zoe collections.
HTC’s challenge will be explaining all this, particularly at the point of retail. Zoe makes more sense the more you play with it, and – once you grasp the idea of the total amount of light being more important than the number of points of light – the 4-megapixel camera sheds what confusion it initially prompts. Explaining them, though, will take time, and in the world of spec-sheet bingo, where comparisons are made on the size of numbers and not what they necessarily bring to the table, that’s going to be an uphill battle. We’ll know more when we have a chance to put the HTC One’s camera through its paces properly for the full SlashGear review.
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After months of rumors and leaks, the HTC was finally unveiled today at a press event in New York City this morning. HTC put a lot of thought and work into their next smartphone which they’re considering to be a device that is busting at the seams with premium quality.
