Fellows, gather round. Do you love the idea of the HTC One? I do. HTC always does so much right, then ruins it for me with a few unwise design decisions. One of those happens to be the two button layout. It really upset me to see such a great phone with a user experience hampered by such a simple design decision gone wrong. However, there is hope for all you hackers and modders.

That HTC logo between the two buttons always looked like a button to us, but now we know it can be made a button. It lies on the touch sensitive area that lets the two buttons flanking it work, so with some clever kernel modding, it can be mapped as a custom button. This means you multitaskers can make it a recent apps key, or those who hate menus can make it a menu key. Magical.

I have always said that the modding community can do anything, and save a phone that’s been neutered from launch. This only reinforces that belief, and it just makes me happy to be a part of this Android community. Will this influence your decision on whether or not to buy the HTC One? Tell us in the comments!

XDA-Developers | Droid-Life