Sprint Commits to Android 2.1 for Hero and Moment

Mobile phone carrier Sprint seems to aim at making its users a little happier than originally expected. The company has just announced that it plans on delivering the 2.1 update for the Google Android operating system that runs on the HTC Hero and Samsung Moment smarpthones it currently has on sale for its customers.

At times when most people were expecting for the company to announce that it will soon deliver the Android 2.0 flavor of the platform to its users, Sprint stepped up and took it upon itself to deliver the news, via Twitter, of course: “Slight clarification on Android OS updates for the HTC Hero & Samsung Moment. Will be updating straight to Android 2.1, not 2.0, in 1H2010,” says Sprint via Twitter.

Both handsets are currently running under the Android 1.5 flavor (Cupcake), and it seems that they will both skip the Android 2.0 version (Eclair), which is currently available on the market on the Motorola DROID from Verizon. To make things even more interesting, there is also a “confirmation” of the move, coming from HTC this time, via Twitter: “Anybody notice the clarification from @sprint? Hero on Sprint will not be getting 2.0…it will get 2.1 :).”

Android 2.1, the next version of Google's platform, is expected to make an appearance on the market as soon as early next year, it seems, most probably on the heavily rumored Nexus One by HTC. However, the platform already emerged into the wild, has been ported to DROID, and screenshots with it, as well as a series of wallpapers from it, are already available for your viewing pleasure.

Since Sprint's Hero is set to receive the Android 2.1 iteration, it remains to be seen whether HTC will also provide it to other Hero users around the world. In case you might not remember, the company promised not too long ago that the handset will receive Android 2.0 pretty soon, yet it seems that nothing was yet officially unveiled. Stay tuned to learn more on this.