Will HTC Develop Its Own Mobile OS?

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HTC is one of the few handset manufacturers that develops for more than one platform, namely Android and Windows Phone 7 (previously, Windows Mobile). It also features the much-celebrated HTC Sense. However, given some limiting factors to UI customization, they might just consider building their own platform.

In a recent interview, HTC’s director of user experience, Drew Bamford, said the company might consider building an operating system from ground up, as both Android and Windows Phone 7 pose some limitations in terms of how the UI can be customized. He says the limitations are a bit challenging and constraining, but it does make the work fun for designers. Still, if it becomes too limiting on the user experience, then HTC will be open to trying new things.

However, in the same interview, Bamford does say that having Google and Microsoft develop the platforms makes it easy for HTC to focus on the hardware and the user interface. Kind of equivocal, but as long as the focus is on the user experience, it works for us.

Still, we wouldn’t bank on HTC suddenly leaving major platforms like WP7 and Android. They don’t see this in the foreseeable future, too. But it is a possibility.