Since the announcement from Google this week regarding Ice Cream Sandwich, every HTC owner has been wondering when they would be able to get the same OS on their beloved phones. Sony Ericsson has openly said all their 2011 phones will get the ICS treatment soon, however HTC has not yet made up their mind.
Here’s the official statement from HTC:
We are excited about the latest update for Android, Ice Cream Sandwich, and are currently reviewing its features and functionality to determine our upgrade plans. Our goal for Android updates is to give every customer an improved user experience, which means balancing each phone’s unique hardware, HTC Sense experience and the Android kernel. While our goal is to upgrade as many of our recent devices as possible, we are committed to maintaining every phone’s performance and usability first. Please stay tuned for more updates on specific device upgrade plans.
It doesn’t say much to be honest. HTC has given no timeline as to when we can expect this update. They haven’t even confirmed whether they’re on board with ICS or not. I’m sure they are but an official statement regarding this would have been reassuring. Another thing to note is that we’ll be seeing Sense UI on ICS phones as well. Android has gone through a dramatic UI overhaul under ICS and hence it would be interesting to see how HTC plans their Sense UI development around it. Previously Sense had bettered almost every part of the OS, however this ICS has stock applications like the people app, which are functionally better than what Sense offers right now. So HTC will have to think a little outside the box if they are to make Sense a better experience than what ICS currently offers. Sense has been the reason why HTC has always been slow in updating their phones and it looks like users will have to wait longer compared to other OEMs to have a taste of ICS.
We can expect all high end handsets from HTC to get ICS eventually. This includes the recently announced Sensation XE and XL and the older Desire HD. The original Desire will probably be left out considering the issues it had regarding Gingerbread update.
