HTC One: Update to Android 4.2.2 mere days away

This morning, we wake to exciting rumours circulating in the HTC One space. A couple of weeks ago we heard that the Android 4.2.2 update for the HTC One was ‘two to three weeks away’, and it seems that this rumour was dead on.

Early this morning, we saw on French Twitter account @HUB_Fr that a few developers had got their hands on a leaked HTC ROM update package (RUU) with version number 2.17.401.1, which updated devices to Android 4.2.2.

Bonne nouvelle, le RUU européen de la mise à jour Android 4.2.2 pour HTC One est entre les mains de certains développeurs indépendants 1/2

— HubFr.com (@HUB_Fr) June 1, 2013

Ce qui signifie que la mise à jour est plus qu'imminente, pensez à vérifiez sur votre HTC One dans les prochains jours 🙂 2/2

— HubFr.com (@HUB_Fr) June 1, 2013

Translated, these updates read:

Good news, the European RUU the Android 4.2.2 update for HTC One is in the hands of some independent developers. This means that the update is imminent, check on your HTC One in the coming days 🙂

We didn’t report on this at the time, as there wasn’t enough substance, but we’ve now found more and more confirmation that this isn’t just rumour, it’s fact. Developers have indeed got their hands on an RUU from HTC (probably a leaked version), and not only this, they’re currently working on releasing custom ROMs off this new base.

It is likely that within the next 24 hours, the RUU will be available in the usual places, and an official update for HTC One owners probably will be out within the next week or so.

To whet your appetite, we’ve got some screenshots of the new HTC One operating system. These aren’t the best exemplars of the update, but it gives you an idea on what some of the new and updated features will be.

Firstly, and this is a small thing, we’ll be able to choose to display the battery percentage in the status bar. It’s something that virtually every other Android device can do, and now the HTC One will have it as well. As it should.

Android EQS integrated and Quick Settings in the toolbar. Just as with stock Android, a swipe-down on the right side of the status bar will reveal Android Quick Settings. Lovers of stock Android will enjoy this, as it doesn’t waste valuable space in your normal notification slide.

We’ll also get the Daydream option, and while a good many people don’t use this, it’s nice to have the option.

Instead of relying on hacks and mods to enable long-press on the back button to operate the menu, we’ll have an official option to long-press on the Home button to activate the menu. This should also prevent that annoying three-dot menu black bar showing up.

There are also changes to the app drawer and the dock — previously, icons added to the dock disappeared from the app drawer, this will no longer happen. It will also be possible to have an empty dock (though why you’d want this I’m not too sure).

There were some rumours that Sense would see an update from 5.0 to 5.1 in this release, but it has been confirmed that Sense remains at version 5.0. There are some improvements to Blinkfeed (but unknown what exactly these improvements are).

Two relatively well known ROM developers on XDA Developers forum — mike1986 and Torxx — have access to the latest Android 4.2.2 RUU from HTC and are working on updating their custom ROMs to use this new base operating system, so within the next 24 hours or so we should see updates to Android Revolution HD and TrickDroid respectively.

We personally can’t wait to see this update land. Are you as excited?