PR challenge
Having said the original Desire will get an update to Android version 2.3 - Gingerbread - sometime in Q2 back in February, HTC has now reversed course with an announcement on its Facebook page.
"Our engineering teams have been working hard for the past few months to find a way to bring Gingerbread to the HTC Desire without compromising the HTC Sense experience you've come to expect from our phones," said the announcement.
"However, we're sorry to announce that we've been forced to accept there isn't enough memory to allow us both to bring Gingerbread and keep the HTC Sense experience on the HTC Desire. We're sincerely sorry for the disappointment that this news may bring to some of you."
As you might expect, Desire users are not amused, prompting the following comment on the Facebook thread by HTC itself: "Hi everyone, we completely understand your frustration and always welcome your feedback, good or bad. However, we must remove posts which contain abusive language. If your comment has been deleted, please repost your comment without the swearing."
Apart from general disappointment, the two strongest themes are 1. If the Wildfire S can get Gingerbread why can't the Desire, and 2. Please release the source code of the 2.6.35 kernel.
It could be argued that the user experience benefit to Desire users from such an update would be minimal, but that seems to be of little consolation to Desire users, who feel overlooked in favour of newer devices. We would like to hear the views of and HTC Desire owners in the HEXUS.community - but please keep it clean ;-).
UPDATE - 15:15, 15 June 2011: Now the HTC Facebook page is saying there WILL be a Gingerbread update for the HTC Desire.
