Many people have been asking when the Android 2.1 update will be released for the American AT&T branded Xperia X10. Unfortunately, no date has been given, however Sony Ericsson have explained why the update has not been released.
The first reason, which some people have already concluded, is that because North America released the Xperia X10 months after many other countries, it’s most likely to be one of the last countries to also receive the Android 2.1 update. While logical in one sense, it seems illogical that Sony Ericsson would not have more people working on releasing the update for various countries. However Sony Ericsson have listed this as one of the reasons saying that “The Xperia™ X10 has been available in some countries since March 2010 and they are also the first to receive the update. The U.S. received the X10 in August 2010 and will receive the update after the initial countries.”
Another explanation behind the delay is with the carrier AT&T. As we’ve seen in other countries already, especially the UK, even though the generic update may be released relatively quickly, networks such as O2 have also had to approve the update, after adding in their own “bloatware” and such into the firmware. Unfortunately, this is also the case with AT&T, a lot of testing and validating needs to be performed before the update is released and in the US, testing is especially rigorous which, can take months to complete. This is why Sony Ericsson have not been able to release a date for the Android 2.1 update in America. Sony Ericsson have said on their Facebook page that “In the U.S., the testing process is especially rigorous, and can take months to complete, which is why we cannot announce the timing for availability of the X10 update in the U.S. It’s not that we don’t want to; it’s that the timing is undefined until such testing is completed.”
