Bad news if you have a Sony Xperia phone that was released last year.
Sony has announced that phones like the Xperia arc S, Xperia ray, Xperia Play, Xperia neo V, and all other 2011 Xperia models will not be getting the push to Android 4.1, also known as Jelly Bean.
“We were glad to provide the Android 4.0.4 upgrade for our 2011 Xperia portfolio across most markets and the majority of models but, after thorough evaluation, we have concluded they will not be upgraded beyond Ice Cream Sandwich,” Sony said in a statement.
“Beyond Ice Cream Sandwich we would not able to guarantee owners of these smartphones the user experience you expect and we demand. We will however, continue to support all these products with firmware maintenance releases,” it continued.
The Jelly Bean upgrade could be considered a minor update for the Android platform, which is why it only brings the version number up to 4.1 instead of 5.0.
The most functional aspect of the update is that it looks different depending on the kind of device, so 7-inch tablets have a different presentation of Jelly Bean than 10-inch tablets or smartphones.
Among the updates are increased enhancements to the speed and performance of Android, new and sleeker widgets for the home screen, expandable notifications, and a more user-friendly app for viewing and deleting photos.
It also offers a new touchscreen keyboard for even more seamless text input, as well as new features for the ever-growing list of near field communication (NFC) devices, allowing users to tap phones together to enable things like photo sharing.
