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.

Mike1986, a respected HTC ROM maker who is responsible for Android Revolution HD, has detailed the upcoming Sense 5.5 update on his blog. Here’s a list of the features and changes you can expect with this release:

• The ability to disable BlinkFeed entirely
• The ability to rearrange the Quick Settings panel
• Keyboard improvements with more emoji icons
• Dual capture and Panorama+ modes inside the Camera app
• Improvements to the Storage page
• Improvements to the Recent Apps panel
• Minor changes to the alarm clock
• New BlinkFeed categories and custom topics

Mike1986 also promises that there are “many more changes” under the hood, as well as performance improvements and bug fixes that make Sense even more stable.

It’s unclear when Sense 5.5 will be made available to the public, but with HTC already rolling out Android 4.3 Jelly Bean to some devices, it seems likely we’ll have to wait for Android 4.4 KitKat now — and who knows how long it will take the Taiwanese manufacturer to get that out of the gate.

Maybe we’ll hear more about the update at HTC’s One Max event in Hong Kong next week.

• SourceAndroid Revolution HD