HTC to complete ICS roll out by August end

Google has already served their latest dish in the form of Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, but there are a range of smartphones from HTC that are still running on Android 2.3 Gingerbread. Towards the end of July, in what came as some good news to Incredible S users, HTC began rolling out Android 4.0 for the handset. At the time, there was next to nothing known when the company's other handsets would receive this major software upgrade, but this seems to have cleared up a bit as HTC has responded to a query on Facebook stating that all of its remaining handsets will receive Android Ice Cream Sandwich before this month ends.

The question on the Facebook page was asked by a HTC Thunderbolt user who wanted to know when his handset would receive Ice Cream Sandwich, to which HTC responded by stating, “Yes, The Thunderbolt is still set to receive ICS. We're still planning to finish updates for all announced devices by the end of August. Thanks for remaining so patient!” Though there are still no exact dates mentioned, HTC users now have a definite time frame within which their devices will be updated.

HTC to complete ICS updates by end of August

The HTC Incredible S recently received the Android 4.0.4 update, which came as an over-the-air (OTA) update that was 250 MB in size. Incredible S users who haven’t received a notification for the update can manually do it by navigating to ‘Software Update’ under ‘About Phone’ in the ‘Settings’ app. The HTC Incredible S was launched in India early last year and ran on Android Froyo. It received the Android 2.3 Gingerbread update after two months.

The list of HTC devices that are supposed to get the update includes the Sensation, Sensation XE, Sensation XL, Desire S, Evo 3D, Incredible S, and the women-centric Rhyme. The Android Ice Cream Sandwich operating system was launched last year, and faced flak for not making it to many handsets. As you can see, ICS updates are now slowly rolling out, but the next and newest version of Android, Jelly Bean, is already here. The list of HTC devices set to get the update included the HTC Desire HD, but in a big disappointment to those looking forward to this development, it's now come to light that the Desire HD will not get ICS.

In related news, the company's flagship smartphone, the One X, has started receiving Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich with a slightly different version of the Sense UI. In a statement, HTC said, “The primary update will include an upgrade to Android version 4.0.4 (Ice Cream Sandwich), in addition to an improved Sense experience that will enable the ability to map menu functions to the 'recent app' key — improving visual presentation in non-ICS apps like Facebook — and improve tab management in the browser with a dedicated tab-switching button.”

The statement further adds, “At this point in time, we can confirm that we have plans to upgrade our HTC One X, HTC One XL and HTC One S to Jelly Bean. While our goal is to bring the latest software updates to as many of our recent devices as possible, we are committed to maintaining every phone's performance and usability first.”