While the Sony Xperia S has been making friends and influencing people overseas, its American cousin the Xperia Ion has been patiently and silently waiting in the wings at AT&T. There’s been no official word on when Sony’s flagship device will come to the US carrier, but a sharp-eyed member at Droid Matters spotted an advertisement in his Gmail inbox stating that the phone was scheduled for a June release. The ad links to a Sony page, not AT&T, so presumably the manufacturer made the error.

 This shouldn’t be taken as gospel, since a leaked textual ad does not a confirmation make. But considering that the last time we saw the Xperia Ion was next to its international brother at CES way back in January, the phone’s bordering on fashionably late as it is. With heavy hitters like the Samsung Galaxy Note and the HTC One X already filling spots on AT&T’s lineup, and the Galaxy S III likely to follow, a June release would be more than prudent for Sony.

The Xperia Ion roughly follows the design and specifications of the Xperia S, though the styling is a little more conservative and lacks a transparent navigation bar. It runs on a 1.5Ghz dual-core processor with an LTE connection and has a massive 12 megapixel rear camera. A 4.55-inch 720p display with better-than-average fidelity doesn’t hurt, either. The last time we saw it the Ion was running Gingerbread, but we can hope and dream that it’ll be upgraded to Ice Cream Sandwich before its release.