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Today’s the day that Sony Xperia S owners have been waiting for since the phone launched a few months ago; Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich is rolling out as of today to phones worldwide.
Despite a few delays, Sony has kept its promise of a May-June launch, and today confirmed the rollout had started. The usual ICS improvements and changes are there, plus some new goodies courtesy of Sony.
The Android 4.0 update adds an improved lockscreen along with resizable widgets – two features we’ve seen on many other devices with the update. Sony has also added swipe to delete gestures in apps such as messaging, along with a handily-placed Settings icon for ease of access.
Our friend the Data Manager is added, as is standard with ICS. This removes the need for apps that monitor your internet usage, as you can view it and even set limits from within the settings menu. Face unlock, another Android 4.0 favourite, is right there and ready to use in the security settings menu as well.
The camera app has been improved with pinch to zoom in and out, along with other gestures that allow you to space out and view your photos and albums in almost any way you want – even by map.
Sony has launched the update just in time, as we’re certain that Xperia S owners were becoming increasingly frustrated at being stuck on Android 2.3 while Sony launched new ‘basic’ phones with Android 4.0 already installed.
At around 200MB the update file is pretty big, but can still be downloaded over the air to your phone via Wi-Fi. Alternatively you can hook your phone up to a PC or Mac using USB and install the update using Sony’s PC and Mac apps, or via their handy web-based updater. Your phone will notify you when the update is ready – we’ve just eagerly checked ours but it’s not there just yet.
Check out the new ICS features in the video below and let us know what you think.
Let us know your thoughts on our comments below or via our @Gadget_Helpline Twitter page or Official Facebook group.
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