The HTC One S, the micro-arc oxidised phone that played second fiddle to the HTC One X and One XL last year, has been confirmed by HTC as not being on the list to receive an update from Android 4.1.1 to Android 4.2.2. That means no Sense 5 update or any of the associated goodies that come with it.
The full quote from HTC reads
We can confirm that the HTC One S will not receive further Android OS updates and will remain on the current version of Android and HTC Sense. We realize this news will be met with disappointment by some, but our customers should feel confident that we have designed the HTC One S to be optimized with our amazing camera and audio experiences.
This news will come as a bit of a disappointment to owners of the One S, but it’s nothing we haven’t seen before with other HTC Phones being deprecated from the list of phones to receive updates. There is always the option to unlock your phone through HTCDev and purse the custom ROM route, but it’s a little disappointing that customers have to resort to that.
Did you purchase a HTC One S and will you now investigate custom ROMs available for it?
Nexus has to be the way to now. 3 HTC phones now and same each time and to think I was contemplating the HTC One.
Loved my Desire. Went through this with Gingerbread. Switched to Samsung.. won’t switch back. They still haven’t learned.
Samsung burned me with no ICS updates for SGS1 or the OG Galaxy Tab 7.
They seem to have gotten a lot better though.
Is it me or wasn’t HTC’s sales pitch for the “One” range was quick updates and will be up to date until the hardware is unable to keep up. I have a One X and I feel as though they really havn’t lived up to that promise.
Wait the phone is updated to 4.1.1 and will not be updated to 4.2……i dont really understand whats much difference between 4.1 and 4.2 (except notification toggles) hey, i have recently updated my phone to 4.2 and there is no muh difference except few features like lock screen widgets and notification toggles….which can be achived with 3rd party apps….correct me if i’m wrong
Doesn’t mean it isn’t alot of work for them to do it.
And yes, there isn’t much difference to the end user in 4.2. I don’t know why people demand it so stridently.
its easy to build, but will take time to test by HTC and then test by Carriers and that will take ages to complete. Its google mistake to release 4.2 so soon that it will confuse….they should have just released 4.1.X….crazy people
And they wonder why their market share took a nose dive. I bought a Sensation and will never by another HTC again. Nexus from here on in.
yep I’m in the same boat as you, bought an incredible S and got burnt, now its a nexus 4.
well that is rubbish. Just over a year old and no longer any manufacturer supported update? Shame on you HTC. I am starting to feel pretty stupid in the Android corner, when people with an iPhone 4 released in 2010 will get the latest update to iOS7, but my phone which I bought in late 2012 will get nothing. I think my next phone will be a nexus or a Samsung, as much as I hate Samsung’s design, at least they look after their customers. HTC officially sucks.
Agree with you on how shoddy this is on HTCs part, I just want to clarify the iOS comparison – they don’t get full features on all iOS devices but they do get the over-arching OS framework updated which is great.
What Google is trying to do is separate some of this framework from the OS and build it into the Google Play Services which they control and update, so this kind of garbage can’t happen on the OEMs part.
But 100% Agree on the Boo HTC part.
Yeah it’s pretty ridiculous. When it comes to Android, it’d be Samsung or a Nexus line for me. Or maybe Sony, they seem to be getting their act together.
HTC really piss me off with this kind of behaviour. The cynic in me thinks that they deliberately string people along with false hope of OS upgrades to lift sales and clear out stock of their older / mid range models. Then once they’ve played that game long enough they’re just like “Naaaah, sucks to be you. Hahaha”. My current phone is an HTC Incredible S which was promised an upgrade to ICS for more than a year before it was eventually dropped and now I am stuck on Gingerbread. (Yes I know it went out to some carriers, but… Read more »
My Incredible S got the ICS upgrade a last year. Don’t know why you never got it, and I am with Optus. (now I have an HTC One)
I am on Virgin Mobile and we did not get the upgrade. There was an Ausdroid story about it at the time if I remember correctly.
The excuses given at the time seemed to imply that they felt that the ICS ROM ran too slowly on the Incredible S so they’d rather not deal with customers complaining that the carrier had made their phones laggy and slow.
How does the performance feel on yours?
Performance is great. I loved it. My husband has it now and I have the HTC One, but it is still fantastic. No idea what they were on about (Virgin) since they are part of the Optus system, using their network.