An Edge Sense app from HTC briefly appeared on the Play Store before disappearing rather quickly, but not before some screenshots were taken that describe and depict the way the Edge Sensors for the upcoming HTC U 11 work. It’s also worth noting that a more in-depth description of the Edge Sensors was covered in our exclusive post about the HTC U 11 back in April, which goes into detail about setting up the Edge Sensors and what they could be used for.
As for the Edge Sense application, according to the screenshots when opening up the app it will run users through a small tutorial that lets them get familiar with how to squeeze the sensors on the phone so they can use them more comfortably later on. It does this by asking users to squeeze the sensors and try to fill up a digital balloon on screen, then let go of the sensors to launch the balloon into the air. This is exactly the same type of test that was described in the diagram’s in our post from April, which just further suggests that the information in those details was correct.
What’s more, is that some other screenshots from the Edge Sense app show that it will be possible to launch Google Assistant by squeezing the sensors while also giving a better visual of where the sensors will be represented on screen when being interacted with. This is another piece of information that was revealed back in April as one of the diagrams listed off a number of apps and services that could potentially be launched by the user following a squeeze. Google Assistant isn’t the only function though, it’s also possible to launch the camera, take a screenshot, turn the flashlight on or off, turn the Wi-Fi on or off, and even simply pick an app to launch as one of the options listed was to “launch an app,” followed by a request for the user to pick something. Whether or not it limits which apps can be opened or not is unclear still, but it’s not likely that HTC would place this limiter on users and the Edge Sensors will more than likely be able to launch any app that the user has installed on their device. The Edge Sense app has since been pulled from the Play Store so there is no way to check it out any longer at this point, but you can view the screenshots below, as well as the images from the testing manual that were covered last month which describe the same exact set of details about testing the squeeze as well as what apps or functions could be launched. This information isn’t exactly new, but it does give a visual to what using the Edge Sensors will look like on the HTC U 11 when it launches.
