14 DAY TRIAL // During the ongoing year, Sony Ericsson brought to the market over half a dozen handsets running under Google's Android operating system and included in its Xperia lineup, and the company has just confirmed plans to bring the new Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich OS flavor on them.
It does not come too much as a surprise that the Japanese Swedish handset vendor will make this move, since they are trying to gain more ground on the smartphone market, and they will need to make their devices as competitive as possible for that.
At the moment, the company is rolling-out the Android 2.3.4 OS flavor on its Xperia devices launched this year, but it will also make the new OS version available in the near future.
“Sony Ericsson is currently rolling out the upgrade to Gingerbread 2.3.4 across its entire 2011 Xperia smartphone portfolio,” the company reportedly stated.
“This software upgrade will be available through a phased roll out in select markets. Beyond Gingerbread 2.3.4, we plan to upgrade our 2011 Xperia smartphone portfolio to the next Android platform made available to us.” Sony Ericsson seems to be the first vendor to confirm actual plans on making the new OS version available as an update for its devices.
Other companies are also expected to make the move, though they did not make specific announcements on the matter.
HTC, for example, said that it was still weighing the benefits of delivering the new OS flavor to its customers, while Motorola Mobility confirmed the arrival of this update only for their latest smartphone, the Motorola RAZR.
Samsung is another vendor expected to make the Ice Cream Sandwich OS available for its existing users, but only Nexus S was said to receive the update for the time being.
Ice Cream Sandwich will arrive on shelves on Samsung GALAXY Nexus in the coming weeks, and more on when it is released on various other devices on the market today will be unveiled at that time, so stay tuned.