While most of us are clamoring over which handsets will receive Android 2.2, we tend to forget about some other users who are still far behind that mark. For example, the HTC Hero on UK’s wireless carrier, Three.

However, it looks like those Three Hero users (and we don’t mean the three users who have a hero…pun?) still on 1.5 will be getting their official upgrade to Eclair once Google OK’s the transition. They also apologize for the (long) delay, saying that other devices, such as the iPhone 4 and Galaxy S, had gotten in the way of their development process. Check out the full statement below.

Thanks for all your patience regarding the 2.1 update for HTC Hero. We have now tested and approved the software and this has been submitted to Google to get the final go-ahead. We’re hoping that they can push this through as quickly as possible, but we’re not clear on the timescales for this yet.

Really sorry for the delay on this update. We’ve been working really hard to approve and launch lots of handsets and updates this month including iPhone 4 and Samsung Galaxy S, and the 2.1 update for Hero has had to queue up alongside these other big launches, particularly the Galaxy S which took a number of versions of software to get right. We’re a smaller network than some of our competitors, and while that has its advantages it also means that our testing team doesn’t have limitless resources. We’ve done our best to manage priorities, but the 2.1 Hero update hasn’t gone through testing and approvals as quickly or as smoothly as we’d have wanted – HTC did have to supply us with a couple of versions until we were satisfied it was bug free. We really wanted to get this to you for the end of July, but we’ve missed our deadline – I’m really sorry I can’t bring you better news on a Friday afternoon but at least you’re now in full possession of the facts.