HTC says One M8 and M7 carrier versions will miss 90-day goal for Lollipop, blames buggy Android code

HTC has been diligent in getting out Android 5.0 Lollipop to the HTC One M8 and original M7 in before their self-imposed 90-day deadline (end of this January). And while we figured this deadline only applied to the HTC One M8 and HTC One Developer and unlocked (international) versions of the device — which actually received Android 5.0.2 a few weeks back — apparently this also meant carrier versions as well.

Rather than keep their customers guessing, they’ve issued an official statement admitting to missing the deadline, while also putting some of the blame on a buggy Lollipop release. Here’s a snippet of their statement issued by HTC’s vice president of product management, Mo Versi.

“We’ve been working hard in the labs with Google and our carrier partners ever since the code release and are making great progress so far, but if you’ve been following the progress of this rollout you will know that Google has had to address several issues with this release. We’ve been diligently working to fix some of them on our end and incorporating Google’s fixes as quickly as possible, but despite everyone’s best efforts some carrier versions of the HTC One (M8) and HTC One (M7) will not meet our 90 day goal, which is February 1st.”

We suppose this is just the nature of attempting to provide users with ETAs, especially when unforeseen issues can delay things further. Add in the usual carrier testing delays and buggy Android code, and were surprised HTC even got Lollipop out on time for their international devices. In any case, we’re not too surprised, and delays happen. We applaud HTC for their continued efforts at transparency.