As most Xperia owners will know by now, Sony are busy rolling out the much awaited update to the Android operating software – namely Android 4.0 or Ice Cream Sandwich – on Xperia handsets that were released in 2011 or later eg the Xperia S, Xperia Arc, Xperia Neo and so on.

It seems Sony Ericsson have gone better this time with the next update for their Xperia handsets. The Android 2.3.4 update was due in October but, reports are coming in that the update is already rolling out. Initially the update was available on the Xperia Neo but, is now available on the Xperia Arc and Xperia Play.

The update has been pushed to those with Nordic and Global firmware and should be released to other regions in due course. There’s nothing here in the UK for unbranded handsets yet but, we’ll keep you updated on the regions the update becomes available in.

Yesterday we reported that in a rather strange turn of events considering O2′s past, they were first to release the latest update for the Xperia Arc and Xperia Play in the UK. Today however, the update has been released for unbranded handsets in the UK for the Xperia Arc and Xperia Play.

The update doesn’t appear to be showing through over the air updates but, when connecting via the Sony Ericsson Update Service, an update is detected. The update brings the Arc and Play to version 2.3.3 of Android, as well as bringing Facebook Inside Xperia on board.

In a strange turn of events, it appears that O2 UK have begun to roll out the Android update for the Xperia Arc. The Android 2.3.3 update began rolling out yesterday to folks in Hong Kong and since then, a few other countries have also received the update.

Sony Ericsson will begin rolling out the first Android update for the new range of Xperia handsets next week. There has been one minor update for the phones since the initial release on April 1st. The new update will upgrade the Android OS to 2.3.3 from 2.3.2 and should hopeful fix many of the issues which have been found on the handsets, particularly the video and audio sync issue while recording videos.