Sony took great pleasure in announcing that all phones in the 2011 Xperia range (er, other than the Xperia Play) would be upgraded to Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0).
However, Telefonica’s O2 has different plans, particularly concerning the Xperia Arc, Neo and Ray.
Writing over on The Blue, the network’s official blog, O2 explains that the Xperia Arc, Neo and Ray won’t be upgraded to Ice Cream Sandwich.
A few weeks ago, Sony announced that the range would indeed be upgraded to Android 4.0.4, but added: “The availability and scheduling of this software upgrade will vary by market and carrier requirements.”
O2 explains: “Unfortunately with the Xperia ray, arc and neo our testing found that the software update affected the phone’s speed and performance.”
Deep breath before we continue: “These issues were present on three separate versions of the Android 4.0 software we tested and are caused by the software having more advanced hardware requirements than previous versions, as Sony explain on their site – ‘Android 4.0’s hardware requirements are more advanced than previous software updates, so your phone’s performance may be affected.’”
Ultimately, that means Xperia Arc, Neo and Ray customers on O2 will “remain on the stable Android 2.3 Gingerbread.” Well, officially, anyway.
Are you affected? Sound off in the comments, broseph.
