Several other writers have pointed out both the pace of updates to Ice Cream Sandwich (Computerworld’s JR Raphel has a very helpful running list of devices scheduled to receive the Android 4.0 update) and the inability of ten key Android partners to even admit they once agreed to develop standards for how to roll out updates to devices in the wild, as laid out by PCMag.com’s Jamie Lendino. At first glance it seems like Android 4.0 is ahead of the game as compared to previous major updates, but the scattershot approach that vendors continue to take to Android upgrades reveals a few things.

SEE ALSO: Google I/O: New Android Supergroup Hopes To Streamline Update Process

The first is not a new revelation, but it’s nonetheless proven true every few months: Android is fragmented. On Friday, Samsung said it was not going to release Android 4.0 to Galaxy S phones because the phone’s hardware couldn’t bear the burden of having to run both the operating system update and Samsung’s custom TouchWiz user interface.

Other Android handset makers have their own custom user interfaces, all of which probably have slightly different hardware requirements. That makes it extremely difficult to enforce upgrade standards across partners because while Motorola’s phones may be able to handle the new software, Samsung’s may not. And forced to choose, those companies are more loyal to the experiences they developed themselves than Android updates.

The second is that the humble organization once known as the Open Handset Alliance appears to have no real function. Instead of moving together on new standards as members of technical organizations tend to do, handset makers and carriers continue to dictate the advancement of Android based on their own individual needs, rather than the good of the many.

When you look back at the original Web site set up by the group back in 2007, it becomes easy to see why: “All members of the Alliance have committed to making the initial version of the platform a commercial success,” the group said in response to the question “What have members of the Alliance committed to?” Now that the commercial success of Android is quite secure, partisan needs appear to taken precedent over the need to convince consumers who have made investments in Android phones that they’ll have access to new features without having to fork over another few hundred bucks to get a whole new phone.

That’s not good for the long-term prospects of Android, as I pointed out earlier this year around the launch of Android 4.0. But that speaks to the third thing revealed by the lack of interest in fulfilling the “update council” mandate laid out by Google last May: the long-term picture for Android is a bit fuzzy as the year winds down.