HTC releases Ice View case app to showcase the full potential of a transparent cover

There are really only two types of people in the smartphone world: those that slap a case on a phone the second it comes out of the box and those that would never sully a smartphone with an ugly slab of plastic. But some smartphone cases offer more than others and precious few offer a lot more. Just take the transparent HTC10 Ice View case that now has its own app. Take that, app-less cases.

The free HTCIce View app only works with the HTC 10 and Ice View case combo, so it’s the very definition of a niche offering. But if you satisfy that select criteria, you can enjoy the full range of Ice View potential, including time and date, weather information, notifications, battery status, music controls, alarms, call rejection, answering and redial. HTC has also enabled the nifty double swipe gesture to launch and control the camera app with the case closed.

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As it stands there is only the default theme, which won’t appeal to everyone’s tastes, but there’s obvious potential for adding themes in a future update. Like Samsung’s Good Lock UI, the Ice View case attempts to make your phone as functional as possible without unlocking it, although as Josh noted in his Ice View review, the case does occasionally interfere with the use of the phone, especially when using either camera.

What are your thoughts on cases generally and does the HTC10 Ice View case take the cake?