HTC's latest flagship smartphone, the HTC One (M8), is at long last officially official, which means it's time to start digging into the nitty gritty of just what the company's updated Sense user interface has in store for us.
The Taiwanese smartphone maker plans to open its built-in skin ever so slightly by allowing developers of all shapes and sizes to make their content part of the new Sense 6.0.
To accomplish this goal, HTC has delivered a software development kit (SDK), allowing third-party companies to contribute to the tiled stream of data which appears in BlinkFeed on the new HTC One.
HTC appears to be taking baby steps by announcing only two SDK partners at launch: Geolocation-based social network service Foursquare and fitness wearables maker Fitbit.
SDK or bust
Foursquare will deliver location-specific suggestions to the BlinkFeed home screen, essentially an extension of what the dedicated Android app already does with notifications.
The inclusion of Fitbit is far more interesting given that it can sidestep the need to slap the company's wearable device onto your wrist and instead tap into the internal sensors of the HTC One (M8).
One such example of Fitbit SDK integration is seeing how many steps you've taken right from BlinkFeed, rather than having to open the standalone app to take a peek.
HTC will have its work cut out for it enlisting additional SDK partners in the months ahead, but the smartphone maker's confirmation that Sense 6.0 will soon be coming to last year's HTC One, HTC One Mini and HTC One Max handsets should encourage developers who might otherwise be on the fence.
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Via Engadget
