One thing a growing segment of Android users have complained about is hardware manufacturers layering the core operating system over with their own skins and interface. Following Google's decision to start selling the Samsung Galaxy S4 with stock Android, the HTC One also appears to be traveling along a similar path.
Apparently, there's going to be a Google Edition of the HTC One that will run stock Android, and it's currently being prepared for a release in the United States along with Samsung's Galaxy S4.
The news comes courtesy of Geek's Russell Holly, who wrote that "multiple sources are now claiming HTC has a build in the works for a vanilla HTC One running Android 4.2.2."
In fact, Holly wrote that sources are now indicating that a stock Android HTC One will be available for release this summer. It should be announced sometime over the course of the next two weeks.
As of now, we still don't know if the Google Edition HTC One will be sold on Google Play like the Samsung Galaxy S4 or through other means.
Still, it's interesting to consider what this means for the HTC One. With the Galaxy S4, the Google Edition's appeal is clear: Those who want the phones powerful performance minus Samsung's TouchWiz UI and proprietary software will be very interested in going with Google. Samsung's own software takes up 8GB of the Galaxy S4's storage, and there's no way to delete any of them, so the Google Edition allows users to bypass those requirements.
But what about the HTC One? As Geek points out, HTC claims the software it included alongside Android is what boosts the performance of its ImageSense software and BeatsAudio. The HTC One's speaker in particular has been praised a great deal, so if the Google Edition HTC One's features suffer from the lack of proprietary software, that won't be a good situation for either Google or HTC. And if there is no noticeable difference, then HTC's software decisions could come under fire as well.
