What's the deal with HTCSense.com?
G&E reader Russ recently reached out to us and asked, "What's the word on HTCSense.com – will it ever be fully functioning with Dashboard, Footprints, etc.?" I thought it was a good question, since the HTC EVO 3D has been out for a little less than half a year, and HTCSense.com hasn't seemed to get any better.
In case you're not familiar with what HTCSense.com purports to offer, the service is supposed to be an easy way to locate your phone, force it to ring at full volume, remotely lock and wipe it, forward text messages and calls to another number, and back up personal information such as contacts and HTC Footprints.
However, the service lacks any backup features when connecting with an EVO 3D. Additionally, 90% of the time, the service is unable to connect to my EVO 3D in order to locate it, lock or wipe it, or force it to ring. In its current state, HTCSense.com is really quite useless, even though it has excellent potential. So I decided to reach out to one of my contacts at HTC to see what, if anything, was being done to correct this problem.
HTC spokesperson Jeff Gordon was kind enough to reply rather quickly, and wrote the following:
Since HTCSense.com is in beta right now, specific features will vary, but the "dashboard" features—like phone finder and the remote wipe—are the core of what is currently available. We're actively working on the back-end technical implementation of the site, and though we don't have new features to announce right now for EVO 3D users, stay tuned as we roll out updates.
So there you have it. Apparently not much has changed since the EVO 3D was originally released, even though they are "actively working" on improving it. There isn't really any new information here, but at least HTC is aware of the problem.
What have your experiences been like using HTCSense.com? Do you prefer third-party alternatives, or would you rather HTC get this built-in functionality working right?
