HTC has officially reckoned that it will be missing its self-imposed 90-day deadline for delivering Android 5.0 Lollipop to its One M8 and One M7 smartphones.
The company has repeatedly promised to deliver the update within 90 days of the source code's availability, and has put significant efforts into keeping its promise. The Google Play, developer and unlocked versions of the HTC One M8 have already received the update, and just earlier this week HTC started rolling out Lollipop to the One M8 in Europe.
At the same time, however, that 90-day timeframe ends on Feb. 1, and HTC will not be able to meet the deadline quite as promised. There are still carrier versions of the One M8 and One M7 that have yet to receive the update, and the company has now confirmed that it will take a little while longer.
"In the spirit of continued transparency, I wanted to share a quick update on where we're at with our Android Lollipop rollout process. We've been working hard in the labs with Google and our carrier partners ever since the code release and are making great progress so far, but if you've been following the progress of this rollout you will know that Google has had to address several issues with this release. We've been diligently working to fix some of them on our end and incorporating Google's fixes as quickly as possible, but despite everyone's best efforts some carrier versions of the HTC One (M8) and HTC One (M7) will not meet our 90 day goal, which is February 1st," HTC acknowledged in a new announcement. "While we are committed to delivering within this time period, we are even more committed to ensuring these updates result in an even better experience with your device because that is what the updates are intended to do."
"We are continuing to push hard to deliver Lollipop to all devices as near the 90-day mark as possible, but we are taking every precaution to ensure the rollout is right and we aren't willing to compromise at your expense. As of today, we've rolled out to Google Play, Unlocked, and Developer Editions of the HTC One (M8). We're still working through the testing process with our partners and hope to have good news to share soon. We promise to keep you updated in real-time as additional devices receive the update on our Software Updates page and @HTCUSA on Twitter."
In other words, HTC has been having a hard time keeping up with the update considering that Google has been constantly updating the source code since its release, but will keep struggling to deliver the update as soon as possible.
While the update delay will not come as good news to eager consumers, it is preferable to get the update later rather than get it on time, but with glitches. Numerous reports so far have bashed various updates released prematurely, bringing annoying bugs to the devices (remember the Galaxy S3 debacle?), and consumers generally prefer to wait a bit longer rather than having an update earlier, but with bugs.
The Android 5.0 Lollipop update shouldn't take too long now to reach more devices, but it will nonetheless miss the deadline. We'll keep you in the loop as soon as more information becomes available.
