Sony comes clean on worldwide Android 4.0 tablet update

Sony continues to mess up with Android updates. Will the company ever figure it out? Crave investigates the madness, and even finds some light at the end of the tunnel.

Sony must stay on top of Android updates for its tablets to remain relevant to consumers.

(Credit: Sony)

One must wonder why Sony cannot get out of the habit of playing a fragmented and behind-the-curve Android release schedule for its devices.

Finally putting speculation to rest, a Sony representative confirmed with Crave today (and subsequently on Twitter) that Sony tablet owners in "all regions will have Android 4.0 by end of May." And on a related note, a Sony Japan statement announced a May 24 drop date for Android 4.0 landing on both Tablet S and Tablet P devices specifically in that country, perhaps a timeframe we should expect elsewhere.

To recap, see if you can keep up with this:

Currently, Sony offers Android 4.0 software for the Tablet S in the U.S. (since April), while Europe, Japan and other countries only have official access to Android 3.2.1 for both the Tablet P and the Tablet S. You read that correctly -- Sony's home country and Europe still pick away at Honeycomb while Americans enjoy Ice Cream Sandwich.

Up until now, the timetable for the arrival time of the Android 4.0 update for Sony's tablets remained a mystery in some ways. Sony gave Android 4.0 to U.S. owners of the Tablet S for a considerable amount of time before any other region.

The level of frustration emanating from European Sony tablet owners seems at an all-time high. One discussion topic at the Sony Europe forums contains many lengthy replies from disappointed Sony tablet owners, including those who resorted to hackers for the update instead. "I have a 16Gb Tab S, rooted and ICS courtesy of Condi from XDA - who is much more helpful and responsive than $ony," said forum user praed0r.

Do you think Sony's continued failure to quickly deploy Android updates burns consumers from repurchasing into the brand? You may recall the now-defunct Sony Ericsson took an extraordinary amount of time to deliver its Android updates back in the Xperia X10 era, so repeating this course of action seems extremely foolish.

Alright well now that users have ICS they will be able to download Chrome, and the next iteration of Android will probably have Chrome already installed. Seriously, IE and Firefox will have to move out of the way bc the new guy is getting more ammo and bigger guns for the fight when all android devices will eventually have Chrome.

Why are the pics of the double screen tablet. I don't even understand why Sony made that one. The other one is fantastic and really looks and feels awesome. I'd own that one.

That tablet looks TERRIBLE!! A simple iPad sytle tablet would be much more effective.

Not for everybody, major fail post.  Apple's marketshare was around 95% when the iPad first came out, now it is down to around 60% and is expected to fall more in the coming months to android's gain.

I'm sure any talbet Sony makes would be shit to you.

Have you used it? If not, your opinion is irrelevant.

I don't even know why Sony would make that! It just looks really bad in my opinion. Useless design. (Just make a smaller screen if you want it more portable! Something like Samsung did.)

err... What's shit ? the fact that they're getting a firmware update? New updates are always a good thing

I was looking forward for the Sony tablet P (the one in the pic) , but having tried it I was largely disappointed , see I wanted a tablet that can fold up and I can carry anywhere, but this one had very strange design fualts that if theyre fixed in a new version , it would make the perfect tablet.

First and pretty obvious one, that black bar that separates the screens is way too big and make the screen seem like cell door, they CAN figure out a way to remove it completly, I bet it's much easier to do thanks to OLED screens just have the seperation bolt under it, kinda like how nokias qwerty phones do with their keyboard

Second the duel screens are never used right, for example when you watch a movie you only watch it on one screen so the second screen is basically useless

Third the outlines around the screen are too big, and there isn't anything there so it's just wasted space, why didn't they for example add playstation buttons there ? Or just make the screens bigger for example. 

On the other hand

the tab p has a very innovative Idea that I hope they continue to support and not be hindered by its sales, just take the idea and improve on it.

The same with Xperia Play, the only thing that was wrong in that phone is on board memory, and an outdated CPU , if they made play 2 you'd bet your ass I am getting one

Tablet S however is a good tablet one of the best android ones in the market, but it's just like any other tablet, nothing unique about it like the P

(also their names suck ,,,,seriously, it's like a vitamin pill)

Major fail post, really?  Top 5 tablet brands by marketshare:

Apple: 62.8%, Samsung: 7.5%, Amazon: 4%, RIM: 2.3%, ASUS: 2.3%

What do they all have in common?  Every single one is a "simple iPad style tablet".  Don't pretend that Android's gains have anything to do with bizarro tablets like Sony's.  Android is simply cloning what people want, and all they want is an iPad.