Android Ice Cream Sandwich Upgrade Process Outlined by Motorola, Sony Ericsson

With the launch of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and the glorious Samsung Galaxy Nexus, Android owners can't help but wonder when their devices will be graced with the new operating
system. Both Sony Ericsson (soon to be just Sony) and Motorola have shed some light on the Android ICS update process in separate blog posts.

Motorola, which is on the verge of being
acquired by Google, explained in a blog post that a lot of work goes into preparing a new Android version for
devices even after Google open sources
the operating system.

Sony Ericsson confirms in a blog post everything that Motorola says about
software updates but delves further into
the details which might prove
somewhat technical to most users.

Common to both the smartphone
makers is that they customise the
operating system to the hardware
requirements of the device and the
specifications provided by the carriers.

The companies then test the implementation and iron out the bugs. The modified OS is then sent to wireless
carriers for certification, which check
whether the device has been optimised
for their network.

After the certification
process is completed, which takes a lot
of time, the companies conduct a pre- release trial after which the OS is
release as update to the users.(itproportal.com)