Samsung Galaxy S2 Ice Cream Sandwich Upgrade Delay Not Google's Fault, Says Rep
Yesterday The Christian Post reported on a statement made by AT&T's CEO that said that Google was the reason for why Android software upgrades were taking so long to roll out.
Google saw the comment and had an interesting rebuttal for the company, stating that Randall Stephenson's claims were inaccurate.
"Mr. Stephenson's carefully worded quote caught our attention and frankly we don't understand what he is referring to. Google does not have any agreements in place that require a negotiation before a handset launches," said a representative for the company.
"Google has always made the latest release of Android available as open source at source.android.com as soon as the first device based on it has launched," continued the rep. "This way, we know the software runs error-free on hardware that has been accepted and approved by manufacturers, operators and regulatory agencies such as the FCC. We then release it to the world."
Stephenson's comment went as follows.
"Google determines what platform gets the newest releases and when," he said. "A lot of times, that's a negotiated arrangement and that's something we work at hard. We know that's important to our customers. That's kind of an ambiguous answer because I can't give you a direct answer in this setting."
It seems that his understanding on the situation is unclear.
But in the midst of the two companies arguing, AT&T displayed a Samsung Galaxy Note running Android 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich earlier this week at a media event.
This means that the carrier should finally be ready to issue an official ICS update to most of its popular devices.
The most anticipated of these would be the Samsung Galaxy S2, a device that AT&T carries two different variants of including the original and the 4G LTE Skyrocket.