Today HTC announced their new flagship Android phone, the One. As the name suggests this phone is meant to be “The One” for consumers. It has almost everything you might imagine, plus a lot more. One of the features that HTC is talking a lot about is BlinkFeed. This is a dedicated page on the homescreen that displays live information from several sources. It does this with tile-like widgets in a magazine style layout.
Does this look remind anyone else of something? Perhaps a certain UI that we are familiar with? Yes, it looks a lot like live tiles and Windows 8. The glance-and-go information idea has been a core part of Windows Phone for several years, and now it’s in Windows 8 too. HTC, and other OEMs, have been borrowing heavily from the idea in recent years. Unfortunately Windows Phone isn’t doing well enough for anyone to know where the ideas came from.
What do you think? Has HTC stolen from Windows Phone?