Amid intensifying rumors that the Sprint Nexus S 4G is ready for a taste of Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, a Sprint employee has confirmed the good news. Sprint has not published details on its Web site yet, but the Jelly Bean upgrade has apparently started to roll out slowly, and may take a week or more to reach all those who own Sprint's version of the Nexus S.

A Sprint employee has confirmed on the Nexus S 4G forums that the update is rolling out Over-the-Air (OTA) from Google's server. This means that users will be prompted when the time has come, but refreshing will not fetch the update any faster. The employee, whose username is RLCollector68, said the update will take a little over a week to reach all Nexus S 4G owners.

"Jelly Bean update has started from Google Over The Air server and will be a slow roll out," wrote the Sprint employee. "Checking for an update will only work if your Nexus S has received the prompt to Install Now or Install Later. The Jelly Bean update will take little over a week to reach all Nexus S phones customers," he explained. "Included with Jelly Bean update is users should no longer receive Garbled Text Messages with No Sender."

Sprint likely included several bug fixes along with the update, in addition to the fix for the text message bug RLCollector68 mentioned. The GSM versions of the Galaxy Nexus and Nexus S have been running Android 4.1 Jelly Bean for a couple of months now, while owners of the Sprint version were left waiting for the update. Even with this announcement, however, not Galaxy Nexus or Nexus 4G owners seem to have actually received the update yet.

Both the Sprint Nexus S 4G and the Galaxy Nexus were expected to get the Jelly Bean upgrade on Sept. 6. The changelog for the Sprint Galaxy Nexus has appeared on Sprint's Web site, but owners are still waiting for the actual update, which may be rolling out slowly as well.