Sony’s Xperia S smartphone is the latest recipient of an Android 4.0 upgrade.
Sony has previously promised that the device would be slated for the update in late may or early June. It may have slightly missed that target, but not by much.
The Xperia S contains a 12-megapixel camera, near field communication (NFC) technology for mobile payments and contactless interactions, and a 4.3-inch HD display.
It is the flagship phone for Sony Mobile Communications, which was developed after Sony bought out Ericsson’s stake in its previous joint venture. With Sony Ericsson now becoming Sony Mobile, there is a lot more inter-departmental communication that will make future Sony phones more compatible with other Sony devices.
Ice Cream Sandwich is one of the biggest updates to Android yet, and includes such features as scanning your face to unlock the phone, a much more robust speech-to-text software program, and an entire platform of data sharing that focuses on Near Field Communication (NFC).
Several other manufacturers have pledged support for the new update, and a bunch of phones currently running an older version of Android.
Ice Cream Sandwich is now powering a decent amount of active Android devices, despite having a slow initial rollout in the early part of the year.
Google sees Android 4.0 as a big reset button on the mobile platform, since it has much stricter hardware guidelines that it hopes will help prevent fragmentation in the future. This is a goal we’ve heard in previous rollouts of Android, so we’ll see if it actually is realized this time.
