Author Archives: Joe Padre

Today, we’ve announced the new Xperia™ ZR, which closely follows on the heels of its bigger sibling, Xperia™ Z, with its waterproof* and dust-resistant capabilities. Xperia™ ZR comes equipped with a Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ S4 Pro quad-core 1.5 GHz processor, Adreno 320 GPU, 4.6” HD Reality Display with Mobile BRAVIA® Engine 2, Android™ 4.1 (Jelly Bean), LTE, NFC, GLONASS, Battery STAMINA mode, and a 13 megapixel fast capture camera with HDR video and “Exmor RS™ for mobile”. Xperia™ ZR will launch in various global markets from Q2 2013 (availability will vary by market). Full specs are available after the jump.

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Last year, we published a story covering GLONASS (Globalnaya Navigatsionnaya Sputnikovaya Sistema), a Russian, radio-based satellite navigation system covering the globe (locations mapped above), which a number of our Xperia™ devices support. In addition to an overview of GLONASS support in our latest Xperia phones from Sony Positioning Specialist, Magnus Persson, he also explained how you can incorporate the feature into your own apps. And in that time, our list of GLONASS-support devices has increased from 8 to 21. Read on to get the full list and a general recap of GLONASS technology.

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Our friends at App Promo have just opened up their 2nd Annual Developer Survey, which looks at how developers are performing with their apps from a discovery and financial perspective. The study aims to gather data to illustrate trends and insights that represent the developer community at large, and which will be used to create an infographic and white paper at the end of May this year. The survey runs from now to May 5, 2013. As an incentive for completing the survey, App Promo is also giving away the chance to win an App Store Optimisation package worth $1,500. So get started on the App Promo survey right away!

Click the Read more link below to read all of our App Promo developer tips.

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One of the unique features you’ll find with recent Xperia™ smartphones is a “blinds” effect that’s part of the lockscreen display – touch your finger anywhere on the screen, and the window shreds into horizontal blind slats. The BlindsView feature is also available on Xperia™ smartphones running the Android Jelly Bean 4.1.2 update (at the moment, Xperia™ TL). You can easily incorporate this graphical UI effect to your own standalone apps using our BlindsView tutorial from Johan Henricson, software project manager at Sony. You’ll also be able to download a separate BlindsView code example kit as part of this tutorial.

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If you’re a developer based in the US or Canada, and are eager to start testing your apps to ensure they work on the latest Xperia™ smartphones, you’re in luck! We’ve just added Xperia Z, Xperia ZL, and Xperia T to our Device Loaner Programme. And tablets and mobile accessories are also available, including the Xperia Tablet S and Sony SmartWatch. With the Device Loaner Programme, you can freely borrow a physical Xperia™ smartphone, tablet, or accessory device for up to 30 days, to ensure that your app works properly with Sony products. Read more about the programme after the jump.

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Today, we’re introducing the Xperia™ SP & Xperia™ L, two new models joining the Xperia™ range of premium smartphones. Xperia™ SP comes with a 1.7 GHz Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ S4 Plus dual core processor with the Adreno 320 GPU, 1 GB RAM, 4.6” HD Reality Display with Mobile BRAVIA® Engine 2, Android™ 4.1 (Jelly Bean), LTE, NFC, GLONASS, Battery STAMINA mode, and an 8MP camera with HDR for picture.  Xperia™ L offers a 1 GHz Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ S4 Plus dual core processor, 1 GB RAM, 4.3” FWVGA display, Android™ 4.1 (Jelly Bean), NFC, Battery STAMINA mode, and an 8MP camera with HDR for picture and movie. The new Xperia™ SP and Xperia™ L will both be available from Q2 2013. Get more specs after the jump.

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The new Xperia Tablet Z and its smartphone equivalent, Xperia Z, are the latest Sony products that include Small Apps and IR remote sensor functionality. If you’re ready to start developing your own Small Apps or your own IR remote sensor-enabled apps, you’ll want to do so using the new Sony Add-on SDK. Read on for a quick look at how you can get your development started right away!

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One of the awesome features you’ll find in the recently announced Sony Xperia Z is its 5” screen, which boasts a display density of 440 dpi, and falls into a new class of screen called xxhdpi. With more and more xxhdpi devices coming out, it’s important to make sure you have configured your app’s Android manifest not to exclude such high density screens. Otherwise you might find that your app isn’t showing up on Google Play™ when searched from these devices. Read on to learn what to do, and what not to do, to support xxhdpi screens.

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A few weeks ago, we highlighted LTE coverage for Xperia smartphones to let you know which devices had LTE support and the regions which generally offered LTE service. Now, we’d like to share with you the next step in the evolution of LTE – making voice calls over LTE, which we’re currently demonstrating at Mobile World Congress. Voice over LTE (VoLTE) gives you telecom-grade voice functionality over IP while keeping the high speed data connection. Read on as Sony connectivity engineers, Daniel Lönnblad and Pär Olsson, share their VoLTE expertise.

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Today, we’ve officially announced the global availability of Xperia™ Tablet Z, the world’s slimmest LTE tablet. This premium HD tablet sets new standards for tablet thinness, weight, and water-resistance. Measuring only 6.9mm and weighing under 500g, it’s the thinnest and lightest LTE tablet available. And it has the highest levels of water resistance (IP55 & IP57) ever delivered in a tablet. Xperia™ Tablet Z is also the first tablet to run on the Qualcomm® quad-core Snapdragon™ S4 Pro processor. Read on to get the full specs for Xperia™ Tablet Z.

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