HTC has confirmed via their Twitter feed that the Sprint Hero will be receiving the long awaited Android 2.0 update known coloquially as Eclair early next year, which places it in the same timeframe as the recently announced update for the Verizon Droid Eris.
Android 2.0 features many core improvements to the operating system such as the improved on-screen virtual keyboard and improved Android Market access, with the biggest addition being Google Maps for Mobile with Navigation.
Update: Following up in related news, Sprint has just confirmed the same update to Android 2.0 for the Samsung Moment during the first half of next year.
Update 2: Sprint has clarified its initial tweet from last Friday, stating that the Hero and Moment will be in fact be updated to Android 2.1 and not 2.0 as initially stated. Android 2.1 also has the distinctive baked good codename of Flan, which is a delicious caramel covered custard pastry.
Knowing the update 2.0 is coming almost makes me want to give up my sero plan just to get this phone. Almost.
I’ll wait for the next hotness from whoever, for some reason I think Android and Web OS will be what it is
Who wants to take bets that Sprint won’t release Eclair (2.0) until after Flan is already out on Vzw?
Keep in mind, Android 2.0 on Verizon was a one time deal. Motorola did not deploy Android 2.0 on the CLIQ or the Milestone (the European variant of the Droid).
Motorola spent extreme amounts of R&D budgets to get Verizon that exclusive. It is much more likely to fall in-line with the other versions.
Finally, Google wanted to focus on a single device that was going to get a large ad campaign to promote Android. The HTC ad campaign was focused on the HTC brand, but Verizon’s Droid campaign was focused on promoting, well, an Android superphone. As such, Google too was interested in giving Droid the 2.0 exclusive.
Bottom line: The focus should be on making sure devices keep getting updated, the order they get updated in will become less of an issue with time.
what is the point of an exclusive if it is only a few months, that is not going to make much of a difference.
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Any chance of sprint dropping the price down to $99 to match Verizon’s?
You can get it at Best Buy for that price
Yeah, I already tried. They only give you that price if you activate a new line of service, which I’m not interested in doing.
@otis I called retention once I saw that Best Buy had the Hero for $99, and I paid $176 after discount/rebate buying from sprint.com. The rep gave me a $77 credit, so it’s doable.
[…] the Sprint Hero and Samsung Moment have been pushed back to the second quarter of the year from its previous 1st quarter […]