It looks like HTC really is building its own smartphone platform. Android Community points us to a leaked picture that purportedly shows off HTC’s new smartphone OS that it will use exclusively on smartphones sold in China. The layout of the purported HTC OS looks a lot like the Blinkfeed overlay that HTC developed for its latest Android devices so it still isn’t clear whether this new platform is completely new or whether it’s simply a forked version of Android modified specifically to fit the Chinese government’s specifications.
The Wall Street Journal reported last month that HTC is building the new platform because China is eager to have an alternative to mobile platforms developed by American companies Google and Apple, which have both gotten into spats with the government over the past few years. For its part, HTC has denied to The Financial Times that it’s the driving force behind a new China-centric platform but did say that it’s working with the Chinese government on developing unspecified technologies.
The picture of the purported HTC mobile OS follows below.
