While the BlinkFeed feature on the latest HTC smartphones is a nice idea, the vast majority of people I know with an HTC device never use it — and we’d all love the option to disable it completely. Fortunately, it looks like that option will finally be introduced with Sense 5.5.

An HTC ROM maker has gotten their hands on the Sense 5.5 user interface ahead of its official release, and in addition to BlinkFeed changes, there’s a new “Do Not Disturb” mode to suspend notifications, new camera features, and plenty of other improvements throughout the system.

Samsung’s working on a new high-end smartphone for Japan called the Galaxy J, and it has just been leaked ahead of its official debut. The device looks a lot like the Galaxy Note II, but it has a smaller 5-inch display. Don’t assume it’s a cheaper version, though — it also has a faster Snapdragon 800 processor, a 20.7-megapixel rear-facing camera, and a dust- and water-resistant design.

It has taken almost 16 months, but Google’s current Jelly Bean operating system has now reached almost half of all Android-powered devices. It boasts a bigger share than its predecessor, Ice Cream Sandwich — and Android 2.3 Gingerbread, which is the second-most popular version of Android with a 28.5% share of distribution.

A relatively stable test build of Android 4.3 which was adapted for the European Galaxy S4 (GT-I9505) has been leaked on a popular Samsung-orientated website, and has now been made available for the general public to download.

Yesterday, HTC pushed out a rather sizeable, much-anticipated over-the-air (OTA) update to all One handsets in Canada. The upgrade brings Android 4.3 Jelly Bean and Sense 5 to the device, complete with a mass of additional bug fixes and speed optimizations, as well as a stylish new charging animation for when the handset is powered off.