We’ve heard plenty from smartphone manufacturers about what the chances are that we’ll see Ice Cream Sandwich upgrades arrive for our current models, and when those opportunities might arrive. Some aren’t offering more than a “we’ll release what we can, when we can, if it works well”, while others have given general estimates about when updates might arrive for specific models. This past weekend, Motorola made an oddly specific comment about when its updates might come out, but just what does it mean?

In response to a question about whether or not the Atrix would be seeing some Android 4.0 love, Motorola tweeted in response, “We’ll be releasing devices for ICS 6 weeks after Google releases the final version of it.”

That timetable suggests Motorola has a definite schedule in mind for getting Ice Cream Sandwich to its phones, even a quite ambitious one, but it’s hard to nail-down exactly what it means. For starters, what’s the “final version” of Ice Cream Sandwich? Chances are, we’ll see 4.0.x releases down the line. Does Motorola mean when Google provides it with the 4.0 source, or maybe when the Galaxy Nexus is released and a 4.0 device is officially available? Without knowing when we’re supposed to start counting, those six weeks could end anytime.

It’s unrealistic to expect Motorola to update all its Android 4.0-capable hardware all at once, especially so soon, so there’s got to be more to its strategy than this tweet lets on. It definitely gives us a good starting place, but there’s still more we want to know.

Update: Here’s a slightly more cynical read of Motorola’s message – could it mean “We’ll be releasing (the list of devices getting updates) for ICS…”? That does tend to make a bit more sense, doesn’t it?

Update 2: This tweet has since been taken down, but looks to back-up that theory: