It always takes extra time to port new Android updates to devices running the OS beneath a manufacturer's special skin.  This process often frustrates users of these handsets because they have to stand by and wait for the update to come while watching other owners get their own upgrades.  HTC recently spoke with Pocket-lint about what a manufacturer goes through when developing these updates and also gave us information about when we can expect Android updates to come to HTC devices.  Eric Lin, global public relations and online community manager for HTC, took us through the update process:

"It takes time to port all of our applications over to Froyo and then make sure that it is running well on each of our devices," said Lin. "That’s not like a one week kind of project. We need to make sure that our applications are taking advantage of the Froyo features. To make sure that they’re all running properly on the OS now that it’s a new version. And then to make sure that it's running on our hardware as well as we expect."

Lin explained that while the porting process used to take quite a while, we shouldn't see such large delays with the update to Android 2.2, a.k.a. Froyo, because he drastic changes seen in the jump from version 1.5 or 1.6 up to 2.1 are mostly absent in the update from 2.1 to 2.2.  Does this mean we'll be seeing Gingerbread by the end of this year?  Probably not, Lin explained:

"I don’t think so. I don’t know what Gingerbread involves, but I would believe that we would be done with our Froyo updates before Christmas. And since Google hasn’t made any announcements as to when Gingerbread is going to come out, I’m not going to make that guess, it could be Q1 of next year."

While we may get disappointed with manufacturers for taking such a long time to release Android updates to their phones, we also have to consider all of the work that it takes.  The entire porting process, coupled with the speed of Android update releases, means that it can be hard to keep up with the platform and roll out updates as quickly as possible.  It's great to see a company being so straight with it's customers, too.  Since there's not even any release information on the Gingerbread update, Android fans will simply have to focus on Froyo and enjoy what they have now.

Via Pocket-lint