LONDON: HTC has missed its self-imposed deadline of February 1 to deliver Android 5.0 Lollipop to US owners of its HTC One M8 and M7.
Google’s own Android Lollipop rollout hasn’t been the smoothest the company has delivered. Bugs had to be ironed out in last-minute fixes, which resulted in the update being delayed for its own-brand devices, like the Nexus 5. There were also complaints that the update bricked Nexus 7 devices after it did eventually roll out.
Unfortunately for owners of HTC’s flagship phones, bugs in the OS have derailed HTC’s promise to deliver the latest Android update within 90 days of its official release by Google.
“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,” Mo Versi, HTC US vice president of product management, said in an update on Friday.
“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,” he added.
It’s not the first time the manufacturer has experienced such delays: it had trouble meeting its 90-day target when it was preparing Android 4.4 KitKat for a carrier-locked version of its HTC One M7.
The company instituted its 90-day target with the release of Jelly Bean, and as Versi pointed out, it’s arguably inspired the mobile industry to deliver updates faster. However, HTC is generally beaten to the rollout punch by Motorola due to its use of a stock version of Android.
Other companies’ flagship gadgets have also seen Lollipop arrive quicker than HTC’s. LG has begun rolling out Android 5.0 to G3 owners, while Samsung began tackling the update for the Galaxy S5 in some markets in January.
The delays only apply to HTC’s US customers; the Lollipop update began arriving for European customers from the middle of last week.
HTC has also rolled out Android 5.0 to unlocked, Google Play, and developer editions of the HTC One M7 and One M8 in the US.
Nearly three months to the day since its release, Lollipop is still on fewer than 0.1 percent of all Android phones that have the Google Play store app, according to Google’s latest distribution figures, which should be updated in the coming week.
