3UK Upgrades HTC Desire To Android 2.3

Mobile operator 3UK has confirmed that HTC Desire users on its network will be upgraded to Android 2.3 (Gingerbread), but has not given any indication of when this might be.

Responding to a tweet asking whether 3 would release Android 2.3 for the original HTC Desire, the carrier said “Yes we will but we don’t have timescales yet.”

The news confirms rumours from Mobile World Congress last week, that a Gingerbread update for the Desire would appear within a month or two of the Desire S’s launch.

Nexus Phones to get Android 2.3.3 update

Meanwhile Google has also announced via Twitter that a Gingerbread update (Android 2.3.3) is now rolling out to Nexus S and Nexus One smartphones. The news follows months of delays for Nexus One owners, and will finally bring it onto the same platform as the Nexus S.

The Gingerbread update will bring a number of new features to Android smartphones, including better app management, a redesigned keyboard, one-handed text-editing features, and a new app to keep tabs on downloads. It also includes support for Near Field Communication (NFC) technology, but this will only work on handsets with appropriate hardware.

Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt also revealed last week that the next version of Android for smartphones will be Android 2.4, codenamed Ice Cream. In a keynote at mobile World Congress, he implied that this would bring together the Honeycomb and Gingerbread releases, to avoid further fragmentation of the operating system.

This week, a list of the UK’s most sought-after mobiles compiled by uSwitch.com revealed that Android smartphones had pushed Apple’s iPhone out of the top five. The uSwitch Mobile Tracker, which ranks handsets based on live searches and sales, shows Android-based HTC dominating the top three places.

“The competition is taking a huge bite out of Apple’s market,” said Ernest Doku, technology expert at uSwitch.com.