As you know by now, I really do love my HTC Desire Z phone. However, besides the miserable battery life which one tries to live with because it’s otherwise such a kickass phone, a major gripe was HTC Sense’s vertical swipe to answer or decline an incoming phone call. This has resulted in me accidentally answering or declining numerous incoming calls as I was trying to fish the phone out of my jeans pocket, as this fishing generally causes one’s fingers to slide vertically over the screen. The advice of turning the phone around so the screen faces one’s leg also doesn’t cut it, because the screen could get scratched on the various small studs one often finds in that area, but more importantly because I don’t like following semi-working rules like that.

I finally found a forum posting by a user named deetsvl with a solution to this problem that I’ve confirmed works perfectly on this HTC Desire Z. Behold:

All hail WidgetLocker, solution to the HTC Sense accidental answering problem!

WidgetLocker going to cost you a whole € 1.41, but it does the trick just perfectly, if you remember to change the following setting: In “Settings | Popups”, check “Hide Incoming Call”. When you receive a call, you’ll have to slide horizontally first to unlock WidgetLocker, then the normal vertical business for answering / declining a call. If you manage to do that accidentally, I know a good side-show agent, so give me a call. On my Desire Z, I also checked “Settings | Buttons & Inputs | Slide Keyboard Unlock” so that I don’t have to unlock Widget Locker when suavely flick-sliding open the keyboard on this baby.

I hope that you enjoy your new-found only-answering-and-declining-calls-that-you-really-want-to freedom!