HTC Sense UI coming to the Magic?

HTC Magic to get the Hero skin
HTC Magic to get the Hero skin

Despite widespread rumours to the contrary, it appears the HTC Hero's Sense UI could be available for the Magic soon.

The notion of the Sense UI, which gives you seven home screens and a number of new widgets (such as Twitter), coming to the HTC Magic would make a it a great proposition for new customers.

However, other sources have indicated that it's impossible to do so, according to high up sources within HTC.

The mystery appears to have been solved by a Taiwanese site, which states that HTC Magic users will be able to upgrade to the Sense UI in the coming months.

Magic box

The reason some will be able to do it is that many regions carrying the Magic have it without the heavy Google branding, which apparently forbids the Sense UI (which is all HTC and very little Google) from being used on its branded products.

Here's the explanation (with a little bit of Chinglish for Monday morning): "If you bought the Magic before the users do not envy or anger, HTC today also announced that the Magic the previous user, you can in early October to between 10/31 to HTC official website for free download new software, updated to Sense The new interface, we can imagine, in the Magic update, and to narrow the gap between the two has been a big step."

So it seems UK HTC Magic owners won't be able to use the new Sense UI - unless you want to get all hacky with your handset.

Update: apparently HTC has issued a press release that confirms the update will be available - but as thought, it will only be for HTC Magic phones in the Taiwan region for now. It's not yet known whether it will cost anything to make the upgrade, but HTC has taken another step towards thoroughly owning Android.

Via Engadget

Gareth Beavis
Formerly Global Editor in Chief


Gareth has been part of the consumer technology world in a career spanning three decades. He started life as a staff writer on the fledgling TechRadar, and has grown with the site (primarily as phones, tablets and wearables editor) until becoming Global Editor in Chief in 2018. Gareth has written over 4,000 articles for TechRadar, has contributed expert insight to a number of other publications, chaired panels on zeitgeist technologies, presented at the Gadget Show Live as well as representing the brand on TV and radio for multiple channels including Sky, BBC, ITV and Al-Jazeera. Passionate about fitness, he can bore anyone rigid about stress management, sleep tracking, heart rate variance as well as bemoaning something about the latest iPhone, Galaxy or OLED TV.