HTC One S Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean Update: Flagship Device Will Never Receive Any Additional OS Upgrades [REPORT]

The HTC One S has been out for 15 months but HTC has already abandoned giving it any additional Android updates beyond what it currently boasts, Android 4.1.1 Jelly Bean and Sense 4+ custom UI. HTC said in an official statement:

"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."

That is an understatement to say the least. The phone has a 1.5GHz processor and 1GB of RAM meaning it shouldn’t have too much of a problem handling Android OS updates. Particularly not Android 5.0 Key Lime Pie, with the news that it can operate on phones with as little as 512MB of RAM. It is disconcerting that HTC is so quick to abandon support for the device that could be thought of as a flagship product according to Android Central:

Originally released on Android 4.0.3 Ice Cream Sandwich last Spring, the One S was one of the top HTC devices of the year. At the time of its release, we praised its aluminum unibody design, thin profile and impressive camera. With the One S being retired on Android 4.1, the phone will have only seen one OS version update in its lifetime, which is disappointing for something billed as a flagship product.

The whole problem aptly illustrates the problems of Android device fragmentation which we have written about before. In part, because of custom UI’s and the open source nature of Android, Google has a fairly difficult time of ensuring Android OS updates all go out in a timely manner and are updated to all devices, compared to Apple which controls hardware and software of the iPhones.

The customized skins and UI’s hinder the updates to devices like the HTC S, prompting users to seek stock Android “Google Edition” devices like the Samsung Galaxy S4 Google Edition, HTC One Nexus Experience, the Nexus 4 and Nexus 7 line of products and the Sony Xperia Z vanilla Android edition.

Hopefully with Android 5.0 Key Lime Pie we will see more devices get Android OS updates.