Surprisingly close to when Motorola did it, Sony Ericsson laid out the process for updating its phones to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. Basically, it’s going to take a while for Android 4.0 to land on Sony Ericsson’s phones but that doesn’t mean it isn’t working hard on it.
The company had previously said that 2011 Xperia devices like the Arc will definitely get the Ice Cream Sandwich upgrade. It is very transparent about the process of getting this software on its devices, as this involves taking the open source version, adapting it to their custom user interface, testing it internally, getting it approved by carriers around the world, testing some more and then sending it out. In particular, the carrier testing phase may take a while, as it said in the post:
In some cases, the new and complete software release has to be approved to be used in all the different networks that our phones should work in. Many operators also want to customise the software according to their requirements, which in turn are based on their market, network, differentiation and business model. We implement all of these customisations and create a variety of software packages and releases for each operator.
So, yeah, it looks like the Samsung Galaxy Nexus will be the only device officially with Ice Cream Sandwich over the next few months but it should be coming soon. What’s the big deal? Well, check out our super breakdown of Android Ice Cream Sandwich to see what the fuss is all about.
[Via Sony Ericsson]