What is HTC Sense? : Eight HTC Sense Features I Love on My HTC Desire HD and HTC Desire Z

We already know that HTC phones, specifically HTC Desire HD and HTC Desire Z, are well-constructed, brilliantly designed and highly durable -- but really, that's only half of the reason why they are so amazing.

The other half can be seen when you turn on these handsets and start exploring the software.





At the heart of any HTC smartphone interface is HTC Sense. HTC Sense is a holistic experience designed around many insightful ideas; Ideas that seem so simple, you would think "Why hasn't any one else thought of that? It just makes sense." HTC Sense offers a lot of little surprises, delighting you every time you use your phone.

Both my HTC Desire HD and HTC Desire Z smartphones come with HTC Sense. And here are eight HTC Sense features that I absolutely love --

1. Friend Stream
Friend Stream is a widget that you can put on your HTC homescreen. What it does is that it streams all status updates, comments, check-ins, photos and tweets from all of your contacts' Facebook, Twitter and Flickr accounts and even allows you post an update on all of your social networking accounts in one go -- saving you time and letting you to connect with your friends quickly and easily.

2. Gorgeous Skins and Scenes
HTC Sense comes with a lot of gorgeous pre-installed scenes and skins for the Android operating system. And you can always download more via HTC Hub.

3. Helicopter View
HTC Sense on both HTC Desire HD and HTC Desire Z comes with 7 homescreens. Pinching any of those launches Helicopter View, which shows mini versions of each homescreen. This view is particularly handy when you can't be bothered sweeping across seven homescreens just to find the application or widget you want to use. You can even swap the positions of homescreens by simply dragging and dropping them.

4. Quick Loading Map
You'd be pleasantly surprised at how fast Maps load on HTC Desire HD or HTC Desire Z. And you can even make it a zero-wait experience by pre-caching or pre-loading maps on the device.

5. Flip to Silence
No more awkward 'loud ringing phone moments' in meetings or dates. Forgot to put your HTC phone on silent mode before entering the boardroom for a meeting? Just flip your ringing phone to silence it.

6. HTCSense.com
The HTC Sense experience is not just limited to your HTC phone. With HTCSense.com, you can control how your phone works using a computer that's connected to the internet. HTCSense.com lets you track your phone's location, make it play a sound at full volume or even wipe out all the data it holds in case the device gets stolen or misplaced.

7. Text Wrap on Browser Screen
It's another of those features that make you say 'Hey, that just makes sense.' When you pinch to zoom in or out on the phone's browser, the text instantly wraps around the screen. This means that you don't have keep panning from left to right to make sure you read everything.

8. Easy Share
Saw a photo, video, website, quote, tweet or any multimedia file on your HTC phone that you want to share with friends? Well, HTC Sense lets you easily share them on Friend Stream, via email, as a blog post or through various applications on your HTC smartphone.

Learn more about HTC Sense via this official video presentation from HTC --