By We can’t say we’re surprised to hear this, folks. HTC initially had plans to let the HTC Desire die without a hint of bread. Gingerbread, to be exact. It would drift off into the wind, carrying caseloads of Froyo to give away to anyone who craved some. This displeased everyone, of course, and HTC responded. They’ve been getting good at that customer satisfaction thing lately.
Less than 24 hours after that decision, HTC elected to recant and they joyed everyone by telling them that they’ll be bringing Gingerbread to the Desire after all. They had to sacrifice something, though – apps. HTC originally stated memory issues as the reason they couldn’t fit a Gingerbread ROM on the phone. Users called this “BS” as there’s an entire community of Desire users on Gingerbread Sense ROMs.
Those ROMs are usually devoid of bloatware. HTC probably saw that and said “ya’ know, maybe we can do the same to deliver an official update to our users.” And I suppose that’s exactly what happened as they’ve confirmed all of this on their Facebook page. Here’s their full quote on the matter:
To resolve Desire’s memory issue and enable the upgrade to Gingerbread, we will cut select apps from the release. Look for status updates starting next week. We apologize for any confusion.
HTC goes on to state that the applications they decide to remove from the ROM will be available for download in the Android market, a smart move to make sure they aren’t stepping on the toes of users who actually use them. In fact, why can’t we just get this option for all ROMs from OEMs? I’m sure the folks who don’t know a lick about rooting and ROM’ing still want a say on what is and isn’t on their phone.
Unfortunately, that’s just wishful thinking at this point – we have a feeling the Desire is the only phone, from HTC or otherwise, receiving this treatment. Anyway, the point is that Gingerbread’s coming. Expect this to be the end of the line, folks, because we have a feeling Ice Cream Sandwich will just be too much dessert for the Desire. [Twitter, Thanks to everyone who sent this in!]
Now if only the phone companies would realise this – I have at least 3 apps on my Vodafone Desire that I do not need but cannot remove without hacking.
I can hardly say rooting is hacking. It’s pretty easy actually, just try.
They should support the desire like this – it’s probably one of the phones that really got android going.
I look forward to having an official update – since it means i don’t have to find time to root & flash my phone to get any kind of freshly-updated feeling on my device.
The pre-loaded apps are there because of agreements carriers and manufacturers have with app partners. These agreements help to subsidize the cost of the handsets. Without them, you’d pay more.
I’ll pay more for the handset to be free of crap.
Then just buy unbranded phone not on contract
What specifically are these pre-loaded apps? Which am I going to want/need to download? and will gingerbread ultimately leave me even more squeezed of memory for apps?
Easy answer people, root the phone and install a stock (Nexus One) Gingerbread Rom. Then install apps to ext sd petition. All apps and cache imfo can be installed on your ext sd petition. I have a Nexus One with over 85 apps installed and still have over 150 mb of free memory. Nexus starts with about 190 free mb of memory. My phone is very fast, all apps load without any delay, you would never know they were on the sd card. My phone is faster then many of the so called super phones. I have the My Touch 4G, G2X and I will be getting the new Sensation today from UPS, My Nexus One is just as fast as most of these phones, Sensation has not yet arrived. This is why I choose Android as my operating system, try to do that to a I-Phone. The Desire is still a very good phone, don’t be afraid at pushing the boundries, that is what Android is all about.
No doubt when the ROM gets to carriers they’ll still be sticking their own bloatware apps in there anyway. Orange, I don’t want your messenger, photo uploader, app store, ring tones app, TrafficTV or demos of Midnight Bowling 2, UNO and Monopoly or anything else, so leave them out!