Sony: Don't Rule Out Jelly Bean Updates Just Yet

Sony has been working to brings an Ice Cream Sandwich update to the vast majority of its 2011 smartphone lineup, but news emerged yesterday that the company wouldn't be extending support for those same devices to Jelly Bean. A product manager in the UK posted up the information on Facebook, saying that the Arc S and Mini Pro would not be receiving updates to Jelly Bean. Now Sony has taken to the official Xperia blog, saying that the information is incorrect.

Sony posted the following on the Xperia blog: "We are actively investigating Android OS upgrades for all devices, but in the meantime, our Ice Cream Sandwich rollout for Xperia S and 2011 Xperia smartphones continues as planned." It might not be a definitive confirmation that Jelly Bean will be coming to past Sony handsets, but at least it's a stay of execution for the Arc S and Mini Pro in the meantime.

The company has also said that it's determining which 2012 smartphones will see an update to Jelly Bean. Considering the aging Nexus S is able to run the latest version of Android without any issues, it's hard to see Sony leaving the NXT series out in the cold. The only real question is when the company will start rolling out the update.

When owners of Sony handsets do see the Jelly Bean update land, they can look forward to numerous changes and improvements, chief among them Project Butter. That introduces tricks like triple buffering and vertical sync that helps the OS to achieve 60 frames a second and perfectly slick animations. Offline voice recognition is also onboard, even if it's not quite as accurate as the online equivalent, and Google Now promises to act as your virtual assistant.

[via Phone Arena]