ICS Coming to 2011 Sony Xperia Smartphones Mid April

[cereal killer]

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Sony has just announced that the Xperia arc S, Xperia neo V and Xperia ray will be receiving Android 4.0 in mid-April and continue over 4-6 weeks. For those of you wondering about the newly minted Xperia S you will have to wait a bit longer. According to Sony the Xperia S "will be upgraded to Android 4.0 starting from the later part of the second quarter, we will get back with more detailed information on timing over the next weeks."

In an unprecedented move Sony is leaving the upgrade optional for users:

Because this update is a significant revamp of some of your phone’s features, , so that you continue to enjoy optimum experiences from your Xperia smartphone.

Therefore, we’ll only be making it available for download via PC Companion and Bridge for Mac (i.e. not over the air via 3G or WiFi), and you also won’t receive any update requests or notifications.

Bet nobody has ever seen that before. They understand that with a complete overhaul of the UI, it could cause a lot of confusion with inexperienced users, which in turn has the potential to turn into a support nightmare. "Oh my god my phone is entirely different! What's going on?!!" is not an unlikely scenario. Sony see's the value in a well informed customer and has even set up a developer page explaining all the new features that ICS will bring. Looking at the care they are going about to inform their customers is a quite remarkable. Something I personally have never seen. Has anyone heard_insert your smartphone manufacturer here_ tell them "we want to make sure you take a conscious and informed decision to upgrade"?

Please feel free to check out their blog to read the whole article. We'd like to see other manufactures take a page out of Sony's playbook and offer this kind of support and openness. Great customer service is invaluable.

Source: Sony

 

[widetc]

Should the title say 2012??

 

[tjk629]

Should the title say 2012??

Sony is just that FAST with their updates.

Personally, I wish this was the way to update. Grab it from your computer and just flash in recovery, or whatever. Ditch the carrier, and I bet we'd be seeing updates 3+ months earlier.

Y'know like how Apple does it.

 

[NeoandGeo]

Should the title say 2012??

ICS is coming to the 2011 line of devices. The title is correct.

 

[trestevenson]

Another smart move by Sony! They really seem to be making some smart decisions these days! I know plenty of people who are perfectly happy with the OS that's currently on their phone, and have no desire to upgrade despite the security or interface improvements.