Well here we are on the final day of September 2013.

Back on 15 August Nokia announced on their Nokia Conversations blog that the Green Light for Lumia Amber had been given. More information about what features the Lumia Amber software update is here from Nokia.

According to that post Nokia Lumia handsets around the world were to have that update by the end of this month:

The rollout starts now first for the Lumia 920 and Lumia 820 in selected countries as well as the Lumia 521, Lumia 810, and Lumia 928 in the US. Exact delivery timings will vary by region, phone and operator, but we expect the update to reach your Lumia 520, Lumia 620, Lumia 720, Lumia 820 or Lumia 920 by the end of September.

Ok so the wording is actually expected vice will/would or shall. I guess that opens an opportunity for the end of September deadline being missed.

Now of course the release of the update is dependent upon the status of your Nokia Lumia handset as well as your carrier.

If you visit the support page Software Update for Nokia Lumia with Windows Phone 8 you will see the status of delivery of this update for phones around the world.

On that page you will find each device is listed by region, country, carrier and handset as well as its status relating to the delivery of these updates.

Just for clarifications here are Nokia’s definitions for each of these statuses:

  • Waiting for approval = undergoing final testing with Nokia, country or operator to achieve approval.
  • Coming soon = approved, in final pre-release checks.

So I did some calculations based on the info on that page and here is how the delivery of that update breaks down by regions.

Country

Waiting for Approval

Coming Soon

Available

% Deployed

Africa

16

4

60

75%

Asia Pacific

12

9

84

80%

Europe

70

34

267

72%

Latin America

138

19

127

45%

Middle East

9

2

9

45%

North America

4

5

6

40%

As you can see Latin America has the most handsets still waiting on approval of the update with Europe at second most with half of the numbers waiting that Latin America has.  Here in North America we have the lowest percentage of availability for the updates at just 40%.

The overall worldwide availability of these updates is sitting at just 60% across the board.

Something is seriously broken with this process – especially when you consider that the recently released iPhone 5s and 5c have seen two point updates released via carriers since they became available on 20 September 2013.

What exactly has to happen to get these updates out on a more timely basis?