Motorola publish updated ICS timetable and explain their reasons

[Guest PaulOBrien]

Motorola have just published an updated ICS upgrade timetable, as well as posting a short explanation as to why not all devices will be getting an ICS upgrade.

Devices set to be upgraded in Q2 include the DROID RAZR (USA), DROID RAZR MAXX (USA), XOOM WiFi Only (Asia Pacific, Canada, China, EMEA, Japan & LATAM), MOTOROLA RAZR (Asia Pacific, Canada, China, EMEA, Japan, Korea & LATAM), MT917 (China), XT928 (China) and XOOM WiFI + 3G MZ600 (USA). Notable by it's absence is the RAZR MAXX for non USA - I assume this is an oversight - and the XOOM WIFI + 3G for non USA which is still strangely listed as 'Evaluation and Planning - Further details to follow'. Most of the other upgradeable devices will land in Q3, with only the PHOTON 4G coming in Q4.

I'm pretty surprised to see that the Droid 3 / Milestone 3 will remain on Gingerbread, as that's a fairly recent device. The same applies to the Defy Mini, which has only just launched. Even more shocking however is that the MotoLuxe will remain on Android 2.3, a device that is barely a month old. What are you playing at Motorola?!?

In an attempt to justify their reasoning behind their update policy, they have stated...

You may be wondering why all devices aren’t being upgraded to Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich). Here’s the deal. We work very closely with Google and cell phone carriers for every software update. And, obviously we want the new release to improve our devices. If we determine that can’t be done—well then, we’re not able to upgrade that particular device.

I'm sorry, but this doesn't really fly with me... ICS has a number of upgrades (not to mention the ability to use a number of new ICS only applications such as Chrome) and I know full well it'll run fine on devices Motorola is excluding.

Someone's telling porkies... :P

The device upgrade list can be found in the Motorola forums and their excuse post on their blog.

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