Let us all act surprised and pretend that we did not see this one coming.
HTC confirmed in a rather not-so-official fashion that indeed its 2012 flagships won’t be seeing any further updates. Personally, I am not surprised. I had thought HTC would try to be different this time round but just like it did with its 2011 device lineup, those ghosts are back to haunt all the good people out there who trusted HTC to deliver in 2012.
One may argue that it is justifiable that a device released in 2012 can stop getting further updates but if HTC wants to gain the trust of some people who tend to think otherwise like yours truly then we need to see an end to this. It was not until mid-2013 that the One X and the One X+ made the jump to Android 4.2 with several markets like Indian and most Asian countries still getting the update till the year drew to a close. That’s not a bad thing, better late than never, but to discontinue upgrades after that? For a flagship device that folks shed top dollar for? That does not augur well. Not at a moment when HTC needs every bit of positivity as they look to build on the appealing nature of the beautiful One to woo the masses in 2014 and get itself out of the not-so-good situation it is in financially.
HTC follows in the footsteps of LG which is unlikely to be showing any love to its 2012 flagship. Sony is unlikely to show any KitKat love to its 2012 flagship devices too. This trend by Android OEMs is saddening. I just hope that with KitKat being less demanding, these 2012 devices will be the last culprits of the update ghost. Then again, the devices I am highlighting here are flagships. The reasons not to update them are hardly based on device capability but reasons best known to their maker. In contrast, Samsung updated its 2012 flagships to Android 4.3 (of course after a long wait). There is no word yet if we’ll see KitKat on those devices as well but everything points to that happening, however late. Remember the Galaxy S II (a 2011 flagship smartphone) and the Galaxy Note (also a 2011 device) bowed out with an Android 4.1.2 update.
We can confirm that the HTC One X and One X+ will not receive further Android OS updates beyond Android 4.2.2 with Sense 5. We realize this news will be met with disappointment by some, but our customers should feel confident that we have designed both devices to be optimized with our amazing camera and audio experiences.
Photo: Pocketnow
