Sony’s strategy didn’t change after they acquired Ericsson’s shares, so the company continues making smartphones that stand out with their design and good-quality hardware. But like all other Android-devoted manufacturers, Sony has one big problem — it has many smartphones running different versions of Google’s platform and it doesn’t manage to update all of them in time.

The owners of the most powerful smartphones (made by different manufacturers) are in the worst position, since they have paid huge amounts to get these smartphones, and they don’t want them to be out of date. Sony’s most attractive device is the Xperia S, and though it is packed with very good hardware, its platform is only Android 2.3 Gingerbread. This “mistake” must be corrected — Sony realized this and made an official statement providing exact date for the Xperia S ICS update.

Sony first announced that the Xperia S will be upgraded to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich in late May or early June. But later it turned out that this statement referred to only some of the Xperia line devices, and the Xperia S was not among them. To clarify the situation, the Japanese company has announced that the Sony Xperia S will be getting its own portion of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich only in the end of Q2. Sony’s earlier statement reads as follows:

Xperia S is planned to get ICS somewhere around late May/early June. That’s what’s been said and that’s still what we’re sticking to. Any other dates (such as “June/July”) is just speculation. The roll out is, as always, gradual and will not happen over night for all phones. Some phones might get the update in late May whilst other will get it in mid June etc.

Though we can’t be sure Sony will keep its promise and push out the update in time, we can’t do anything but hope. On the other hand, HTC has already announced that all their upgradable smartphones will get ICS by the end of Summer, so if Sony wants to stay in game, they’ll have to work hard.

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