HTC has confirmed that due to licensing agreements in place with Google, the Sense UI, making it first appearance in the upcoming HTC Hero expected to be available in the UK as early as two weeks from now, will not make an appearance in Google branded HTC phones. This is because to qualify as a Google branded phone, the entire operating system must be left pretty much untouched. Which means that if HTC packages support for Microsoft Exchange into one of its Android handsets, that handset will not carry the Google logo. The Google logo appears, and is imprinted, on the battery cover of HTC’s handsets certified as carrying the “Google experience”. I posted about the different types of Android licensing here.
And this probably explains why the HTC Magic sold in Malaysia, in a semi-exclusive deal with Celcom, does not have the usual Google applications such as the mail, and Android Market applications according to some reports I’ve read on the local experience. The user will have to re-flash the entire firmware in order to be able to enjoy these applications. There is however, support for Microsoft Exchange. Here the funny part though – you buy an Android phone, and it doesn’t support GMail! It supports Microsoft Exchange instead. So why not just buy a Windows Mobile phone and not have to go through the hassle, pain and insult of having to flash another firmware, whose results are not guaranteed, on to that super duper expensive phone that you’ve just bought? Plain crazy, I say! So, the poor customer is screwed once with the high pricing, and secondly, screwed again when he/she finds out that the phone can’t support GMail and has no access to the Android Market! Ouch…
