Ice Cream Sandwich update to roll out for Sony Ericsson’s entire Xperia range

Xperia owners rejoice. Sony Ericsson has confirmed that every Xperia handset will get an Ice Cream Sandwich OS update..

In its official statement, the company stated:

“We can today confirm that we plan to upgrade the entire 2011 Xperia portfolio to the next version of Android known as Android 4.0 or Ice Cream Sandwich. We are working on merging our current Xperia experience with the new features in Android 4.0.”

One thing to take note is that the update will roll out only for Xperia handsets released in 2011, which is a bummer for owners of Xperia handsets such as X10.

Know your Mobile provides you a list of Xperia handsets that are eligible for the update:

Xperia arc and arc S

Xperia PLAY

Xperia neo and neo V

Xperia mini and mini pro

Xperia pro

Xperia active

Xperia ray

Sony Ericsson Live with Walkman

Sony has given no word on the date of arrival of the update, but we hope it rolls out in the first quarter of 2012 . 

We applaud Sony Ericsson for being the first company to make such an announcement and hope companies such as Samsung, HTC and Motorola will follow suit.

The last update for Android update was the Android 2.3 – Gingerbread OS that was rolled out in 2010. Since then, device manufacturers have had to make do with minor updates and customized versions of Gingerbread, the last one being Android 2.3.5.

Even high-end phones such as the Motorola Droid Razr, came only with Gingerbread. While Google has already announced the first Ice Cream Sandwich phone – the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, the device will be launched formally only on November 17.

It seems that Ice Cream Sandwich will be freely available only after the release of the Galaxy nexus handset. Google also released the source code for the Ice Cream Sandwich OS recently, which means that you would have plenty of ICS apps to choose from, the moment you get an update.