The soon-to-be defunct Sony Ericsson, which will then become just Sony, is revealing its hand when it comes to Android 4.0. The new update, which is called Ice Cream Sandwich, will be coming to quite a few of the Xperia phones in a multi-month, phased rollout. Sony will kick things off with the Xperia Arc S, Neo V, and Ray with a late-March to early-April release window. Then, later in April to early May, the Xperia Active, Arc, Mini, Mini Pro, Neo, Play, Xperia Pro handsets, and yes, Live With Walkman, will get their own chance at upgrading to Ice Cream Sandwich. Don’t expect that all devices will get Android 4.0 at the same time. Sony is very clear that this will be a phased roll out, meaning depending on your phone model and carrier, you could be receiving the update at a different. Sony explains that there is five parts required on their part to make Android 4.0 available to you:

• It starts with public push when we as a manufacturer get access to the new Android release from Google
• Our developers take the existing Xperia™ software and combine it with the new Android release
• Once the coding is done we want to make sure the quality of the new software meets our, our partners and your expectations
• Now we feel the new software is ready but we also need to make sure it’s approved by our external partners
• All good. We’re all set to roll-out the new software. The story continues in your Xperia™ smartphone

With Sony hoping to climb the Android totem pole to the top, we can only hope that they stay aggressive and that the mentioned time table sticks.

Discuss:

Are you happy with the time table given by Sony and do you think they will be able to stick to it?

[Via Sony Ericsson]