[HD2 General] H2D2:
Hello Gargon, welcome aboard!

I too am new to these forums and I've spent a not-insignificant amount of time browsing threads on the HD2 since I made the decision to finally ditch the venerable nokia 6030 that has served me so well all these years. Being a self-confessed techie the HD2 appealed to me the very instant I first caught a glimpse of it in all its Kubrick monolithic glory and as soon as O2 release info on their tariffs I will be seriously weighing up my options.

Now, let's get down to the nitty gritty. As a disclaimer I've only been here a short while so I wouldn't be surprised if I get a few facts wrong. Hopefully someone will correct me if I do!

The HD2 is powered by Windows Mobile 6.5 edition and as you might imagine it's not too dissimilar in how it operates to the PC desktop version. You have a desktop, start menu, program files etc. with all the various settings held by the registry. The beauty of WinMo is that it is far more customisable than the iPhone OS/Symbian in that you can change pretty much everything you see and also how you interact with the device. For example, a developer on these boards has released an application which enables the vibration feature on almost every keypress whereas the default HD2 only goes so far. Another dev has released an app which changes HTC's desktop from a 3x3 grid of shortcuts to 4x4. You can even do away with HTC's superb frontend entirely and install something like SPB Mobile Shell which has a snazzy rotating cube effect desktop and many other alternative enhancements (although you will have to pay for this). And this is only the tip of the iceberg! There are thousands of applications and games out there on the internet, and with Microsoft finally getting into the appstore gig we can expect a well-stocked central repository for software sometime in the near future. Failing that, google is our friend ;)

With the help of the talented and selfless developers here at xda-dev almost anything is possible, including the potential for changing the operating system entirely, so you can't rule out the HD2 one day running Android or WM7 somewhere down the line, however this depends on one crucial bit of software -- the Hard SPL. Without this essential bit of kit, peons such as myself are unable to reflash the device to a different operating system or even a different version of the current OS (e.g. a lite version to save valuable ROM space, or an enhanced version with greater functionality). Everything hinges on this being developed by the code masters behind the scenes however such projects require a lot of skill, time and effort and such is the support of the community here that monetary donations are pledged in gratitude for past endeavours and in the hope of new enterprise.

As for installing applications themselves, I haven't yet delved deep enough to give you a comprehensive answer, however I suspect that there are FAQs on the parent forums which will give you all the information you need. From what I can tell, applications are released in .cab format which are executed from the phone and self-install. I can't wait until I can get my grubby paws on this masterpiece and get busy pushing buttons! I'm sure I've missed a whole lot of information but my lids are getting heavy and my battery needs charging. I hope this wasn't too patronising for you and I'm sure some other people here will gladly fill you in on anything I've missed.