HTC Hero - Full Flash, Skype over 3G, custom Android UI, multitouch. | Hacker News Reader

HTC Hero - Full Flash, Skype over 3G, custom Android UI, multitouch.

htc.com

70 pointsnailer51 comments

Here are couple early hands-ons:

http://gizmodo.com/5301955/htc-hero-android-phone-hands+on-w...

http://www.engadget.com/2009/06/24/htc-hero-hands-on/

A better (more future-safe) link would be http://www.htc.com/www/product/hero/overview.html

Thanks for the link, but my mind immediately goes to sleep upon seeing all the bla bla. I guess we'll have to wait for some talented bloggers to review it.

Interesting, it says "HTC Magic" on the left navigation frame. HTC forgot to update its template?

I'd say it's more like they're also advertising their older series phones too, given the url for the page is not htc magic specific.

Flash support?! Ughh... I was hoping that widespread proliferation of numerous (and varying) mobile platforms will kill this junk and accelerate HTML/JS/CSS progress.

Hoping that the industry and community will adopt better technologies is fine, but did you seriously think they wouldn't adopt the format that YouTube uses? Further, do you really fault them for it?

Bordering on off-topic, isn't this why YouTube needs to support more output formats?

It already does, but not overtly. The current iPhone YouTube app doesn't read FLV, YouTube re-encoded its whole video library to get on the iPhone.

Are you sure about this? Wouldn't it be easier to write FLV support on the iPhone than to re-encode hundreds of millions of videos?

youtube didn't re-encode videos to get on iphone. It just so happened that youtube wanted to provide High quality videos in h.264 format and iPhone supports it

I think the problem there is Apple - they don't want Flash support on the iPhone. They haven't explicitly stated so, but I think they don't want it because it would give people the ability to develop full iPhone applications that don't go through their store and approval process.

That's also why they're never going to support HTML5, client-side storage, or geo-location in Mobile Safari.

Is this a joke? I honestly can't tell, because of all the following:

- Mobile Safari already supports local storage

- Mobile Safari already supports geolocation: http://geekswithblogs.net/MobileLOB/archive/2009/06/19/getti...

- Mobile Safari also already has other portions of HTML 5 implemented, such as canvas, not to mention really good coverage of css 3.

So as it turns out shipping Mobile Safari already has much better HTML 5 support than many desktop browsers. You may be able to fault iPhone and Mobile Safari a lot of things, but standards support is certainly not one of them.

Sarcasm doesn't always go over well here.

Fair enough - but I can't think of any other reason why Apple would reject Adobe's advances for getting Flash on the iPhone.

The innovation-stifling effects of browser lock-in require development to be expensive. Any compelling product in such an environment will be built to maximize revenue, which requires those products to support as wide of a consumer base as possible. This makes it difficult to build products with new technologies.

Today, development is cheap. Compelling products can be built as side projects with a minimal investment of time and money. If creators don't have to worry about making money with their creations, they're more likely to use whatever technology they feel like using.

If Mobile Safari lags behind other browsers in implementing emerging web standards, many developers will run browsers that stay current, even if they have to buy a new phone to do so. When they come up with nifty ideas that are relatively easy to build, they'll use whatever technologies they want, which will occassionally be HTML5 and friends. After normal iPhone users come across enough neat hacks that their phone can't run because their phone can't support it, they'll switch phones.

I doubt that Apple would let Mobile Safari lag behind other browsers, especially since they'll likely want desktop Safari to support emerging standards, but even if they did, it would be self-defeating.

Argh, they got the clock wrong again. The video shows the time as 10:08, but the clock widget displays 10:23.

No, no. It's just incredibly accurate fractional time-zone support! GPS-based for your exact longitude.

Does anyone know if this will be available in unlocked/developer version similar to the G1?

It seems to be like it'll be sell unlocked from HTC.

The bigger question is if it will be available in a locked version similar to the G1. They haven't announced carrier partners yet and HTC's direct devices are all unlocked.

The video demo gives a better overview then the press release: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kshGq8COSiM

now you'll just need to find a provider who will actually allow you to use VoiP over 3G.

The British network "3" (that's their name!) actively encourage it, selling dedicated Skype phones and running a fairly heavy ad campaign promoting "free calls forever": http://www.three.co.uk/Company/3G_Network/Skype

Calls made via Skype don't eat up your data plan and aren't charged by the minute - they're actually free. I have one and it works surprisingly well, even in patchy coverage where voice calls break up. Whether it really will be forever, I don't know...

Yes, but that only works with their supplied phones. You can still use Skype on other phones, but you'll have to pay the bandwidth cost of £5 / month for 1GB.

£5 per month or per GB?

You get a GB, which is valid for a month. If you want more, you can pay another £5. (or £2.50 for 500MB which is valid for a week)

Well, it's not that expensive. GB is much, isn't it? Here in Russia we pay around 1 ruble/MB which amounts to £20/GB, that's with recent price drops, which I consider decent.

There are no cellular providers like the "3", but on the other hand, phones are not locked to the operator as a rule.

As far as I know, that's because the Skype call isn't actually routed over the data connection, it transfers the voice via the existing voice network and the other end is hooked into a Skype gateway.

[Citation Needed] but I don't have time to dig one up at work

Successfully using it here in Australia with Exetel. Plan costs $5/month with data at $15/1GB (billed per MB).

T-Mobile UK already does with the G1.

Which US carrier will this be available for? Any guesses? It's T-mobile in the UK.

Can't find any info on the price on Google. Any idea how much it'll cost? (in Europe, Asia OR North America)

Outright GBP 439, with a contact free from Orange UK (and probably the same from T-Mobile UK)

here is a demo from Adobe about flash, http://www.adobe.com/devnet/devices/articles/htchero.html actually it looks pretty cool to have flash in your browser, hulu?

Why the little bend at the bottom? It doesn't seem very pocket friendly.

The images seem to be over-accentuating the bend. You can see from http://www.htc.com/uploadedImages/Common/Shared_Image/Galler... , if you tilt your head a bit, most of the "bend" is just making the phone thinner. The front only sticks out ~4mm from the rest of the phone.

That's a way to protect the trackball if you lay the phone face down on a flat surface. On the G1, it is not that pocket unfriendly.

On my G1 it also protects the menu button (which also unlocks the phone from locked mode) from being pressed accidentally.

While you can configure an unlock touch gesture, I haven't bothered yet because I don't find that the menu button is being pressed accidentally in my pocket.

Maybe the concavity reduces accidental keypresses when the phone's in one's pocket/bag.

I've got the G1 and I don't like the 'bend'. HTC should have made the scroll ball flush with the case if that's the reason behind it.

I would assume for face contour. Does seem a bit odd, but overall it's pretty thin so should still be pocketable.

Amusing - because I love my phone so much that I want to feel it all over my skin? ;-)

Well, it also helps with hand contour. And it makes it easy to identify the phone's orientation by touch.

And it encourages you to put the phone in your pocket the right way around... If you read the G1 user manual (yeah, yeah, I know), there is a curious passage advising you to keep the back of the phone 1.5 cm from the body.

I had that problem with the Ipod touch, it gets really hot, so with the right orientation you can avoid that (the G1 gets hot too).

That's in case the battery goes boom. The bend at the bottom is an absolute dealbreaker for me.

The pictures make it look a lot worse than it actually is.

I have a G1 and the bend isn't noticable unless you lay it flat on the table and look at it in profile.

+1 I don't mind it at all.

Can the Sense interface be disabled if you want to use the default Andoid interface?

I have the feeling that you could just delete all of the Sense widgets.

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