Following its previous promise to be more transparent regarding updates for the Droid Bionic, Motorola has updated its Android update master list again to confirm that the long-awaited Ice Cream Sandwich update for the phone is still on track for release this quarter, with waves starting today for current owners. An additional surprise has been added in order to make up for the long wait in an additional update to Jelly Bean slated for sometime next year.
The Motorola Droid Bionic has had a long, strange journey from development to retail release, as it was one of the second generation Verizon LTE smartphones launched all the way back in 2011 during that year’s International CES. The phone actually ended up being one of the least popular devices on Verizon Wireless owing to its unexplained delay from its original Spring 2011 launch timeframe all the way into the Fall of that year, which led to it nearly being forgotten in the face of new devices by HTC and LG as well as receiving a redesign from the originally announced design.
In between the Fall launch up until now, the device was also known for being one of the few devices to also support the full Webtop functionality, which makes the announced update to Ice Cream Sandwich another anomaly for this phone compared to its stablemates, which were denied long-promised Ice Cream Sandwich updates.
The fact that it will now receive Jelly Bean in the future not long after Ice Cream Sandwich makes it even more of a special case, as few other 2011 era Android flagships have been updated to Ice Cream Sandwich and more still will not receive Jelly Bean, such as the entire 2011 Sony Ericsson Android smartphone lineup, as an example.
This not only makes the Bionic suddenly appealing for current Verizon customers that already own the device while validating the initial investment, the phone may even experience an increased surge in popularity on the secondhand market due to the fact that it will get Jelly Bean as an additional bonus for owners that have been kept waiting for updates. While Motorola’s new update cycle for the Bionic may portend good things for Bionic owners following months of waiting, it remains to be seen whether it will keep true to its word for Jelly Bean, lest it pull another dishonorable action.
