To say that Sony’s had a shaky history with upgrading their Android fleet of Xperia smartphones would be an understatement. Sony’s whose been having trouble bringing their smartphones to the market, having announced phones like the Xperia S and Xperia Ion in early January but having only just released them in the market planned for 2012 as the year they would update a majority of their devices to the then latest offering from Google, Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. Sony start the transition in late Spring though the company has yet to fully bring their entire line of phones to ICS while the Xperia S and Xperia Ion still ship without Android 4.0 and be updated later on. Not all phones will be as lucky like the Xperia PLAY which will not be receiving Android 4.0 at anytime.

Now, thanks to the release of Android 4.1 Jelly Bean from Google, Sony is left with a tough choice of how to handle the latest OS which was targeted at cleaning up many of the faults that were created with 4.1 like extreme processor use. Seeing how Sony has yet to finish the transition to Android 4.0, the company has decided that only their 2012 lineup of Xperia smartphones will receive Android 4.1 Jelly Bean while their 2011 fleet like the Xperia arc S and Xperia mini pro will miss out.

Sony has yet to make an official statement, despite all of this news coming from John Cooper, UK Product Manager for Sony Mobile as he answered customer questions on their Facebook page. Could this mean that other Sony phones like the Xperia S and Ion which were released in 2012 to miss the latest update from Mountain View?

That answer remains to be seen though we’re doubtful of it as the newest fleet from Sony offers much improved specs, compared to their 2011 offering which is the reason those won’t see Jelly Bean.

Discuss:

Do you think Sony will bring Android 4.1 Jelly Bean to their 2012 line of Xperia smartphones?

[Via Xperia Blog]