Motorola Atrix 4G owners will not get the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich update the company promised them, according to a newly revised upgrade chart. The phones will continue to run Android 2.3 Gingerbread, dealing another blow to the integrity of Google's upgrade program.
The Atrix 4G was one of a few lucky devices tapped to receive the Android 4 upgrade in the third quarter of this year. However, the quarter has come and gone, and Motorola seems to think there's no point in pushing its luck with the older Atrix 4G; the phone, released in first quarter of 2011, will remain in Gingerbread-land.
Two years seems to be the danger zone for Android upgrade viability in the eyes of manufacturers. When the roadmap was first laid out, Motorola shut out several phones which would turn two years old just as ICS updates started to roll out, including the Droid 2 and Droid X, released in the summer of 2010.
Motorola's lack of follow-through reflects poorly on Google's rapidly fading promises that it will get its software updates under control. This broken promise is particularly dismaying since Motorola is now Google's own house brand, albeit one held at arm's length. We'll have to keep taking Motorola's (and everyone else's) device upgrade schedules with a big fat grain of salt.
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