It wouldn’t be a Sony software or hardware release without some form of delay. Sony, who originally wanted a slew of their smartphone handsets from last year and this year to be upgraded to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich by the end of April, is now pushing back the time frame by nearly a month. The rollout which is now set to start at the end of April will take Sony past June to complete and will not feature an OTA (over-the-air) update. Sony reasons that, due to the big departure from Android 2.3 and potential performance hiccups, the company want users to consciously download the update instead of flipping a switch and then flipping out from the end results.

 Because this update is a significant revamp of some of your phone’s features, we want to make sure you take a conscious and informed decision to upgrade, so that you continue to enjoy optimum experiences from your Xperia smartphone.

Therefore, we’ll only be making it available for download via PC Companion and Bridge for Mac (i.e. not over the air via 3G or WiFi), and you also won’t receive any update requests or notifications. 

Now, let’s talk time table and phone eligibility.

This time around, Sony is following the mantra of “oldies but goodies” and so, starting in mid to late April, the phones that the company  produced with Sony Ericsson will receive Android 4.0 in a 4-6 week period. Those phones include:

• Xperia arc S
• Xperia neo V
• Xperia ray

After that initial wave of phones, Sony will pick up the pace beginning the end of May/early June when the majority of their 2011 eligible phones will go Ice Cream Sandwich:

• Xperia arc
• Xperia PLAY
• Xperia neo
• Xperia mini
• Xperia mini pro
• Xperia pro
• Xperia active
• Sony Ericsson Live with Walkman

So what about Sony’s 2012 line of smartphones which include the Xperia ion, Xperia S, Xperia P, and Xperia U? Not a lot it seems as Sony has been fairly quiet on that front and only mentioning the Xperia S which is set to gain Android 4.0 ICS in the later part of the second quarter.

 Finally, with regards to our all new Sony Xperia S, which will be upgraded to Android 4.0 starting from the later part of the second quarter, we will get back with more detailed information on timing over the next weeks. 

That seems like a bit of backwards thinking where one would imagine that Sony would want their latest and best reviewed line of phones to shine with the rest of the industry, especially as Samsung continues to tout about being the only player with ICS phones in retail stores. Besides, with Sony Ericsson being ranked as the 7th or 8th Android handset maker and that’s not even taking Apple and iOS device sales into consideration, it’s not like there are that many 2011 Sony Ericsson phones in the world (keep in mind, I’m not asking why Sony is updating those, instead I just feel that the 2012 phones should have gone ICS first). Alas, I don’t run Sony and can only point out such things.

[Via Sony]