Category Archives: News

Earlier this week, Sony and Telefónica announced in a joint press release that we are evaluating the Firefox operating system for mobile phones. To show you our current progress, we now also provide an experimental version of the Firefox OS software for Xperia™ E, so that advanced developers can try it out and so that we can get valuable community feedback. In this article, we give you the background of Firefox OS, instructions how to flash Firefox OS on Xperia™ E, as well as an introduction to how to start developing applications for Firefox OS.

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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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We are always striving to be as fast as we can with making the open source archives available after a software build has been released. Now, as we have released our first Jelly Bean SW for Xperia™ T, Xperia™ V and Xperia™ TX, we have seen quite a few requests for the latest open source archives – both for the Jelly Bean release for Xperia™ T, Xperia™ V and Xperia™ TX (SW build 9.1.A.0.489) and for the Xperia™ Z archives (SW build 10.1.A.1.350) for the Japanese launch. Read more about Xperia™ open source archives after the jump.

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A while ago, the Sony Xperia™ News room shared an update on our plans to upgrade certain Xperia™ devices to Jelly Bean. Since then we have received quite a few requests from the Android™ developer community to release an earlier version of the Jelly Bean (JB) software for the developers. This way, advanced developers could try it out and evaluate it, in a similar way to how we did it last year with the ICS alpha release. Please note that there are several limitations to this alpha software, for instance the UI look and feel is not updated to final Sony Jelly Bean software. Read more after the jump!

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The latest version of AppXplore – version 2.5 – is now available for download on Google Play. AppXplore is a free analysis tool that lists all the apps on your Android device, and gives you detailed information for each, including permissions used, Android™ versions supported, libraries shared, and much more. AppXplore is especially useful for seeing how much memory an app is using, and if the file is movable to the SD card. Likewise, developers can use AppXplore for QA purposes, to make sure their apps are showing the proper permissions in the manifest file. Read on to learn more about the latest features of AppXplore 2.5.

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We’re excited to announce a ground-breaking addition to the Xperia™ smartphone lineup – Xperia™ Z. This new smartphone comes with a Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ S4 Pro quad core processor with the Adreno 320 GPU, 2 GB RAM, 5” full HD screen, OptiContrast™ display with 443 ppi, Android™ 4.1 (Jelly Bean), NFC, Mobile BRAVIA® Engine 2, and a 13 MP camera with HDR (High Dynamic Range). Xperia™ Z is also water-resistant and dust-resistant (IP55 & IP57), and designed with tempered glass on the front and back. The new Sony superphone will be launch globally in Q1 2013. Read more about Xperia™ Z after the jump.

Note: Icons displayed are for illustrative purposes only. The homescreen may appear different in your product. Some features may not be available in your country or area.

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A few weeks ago, we challenged all you developers out there to create an app that makes use of the Small Apps multi-tasking functionality in the Xperia™ Tablet S. We received a lot of interesting submissions that deserve mention, such as Muhammad Hakim A’s Al Mishbah Small App and Victor Kropp’s Board Game Dice Roller Small App. But one Small App stood out above the rest – tebaokoshi’s Mini camera . This simple, yet elegant Small App uses the tablet’s camera functionality, and has some handy options. We reached out to tebaokoshi to share the good news, and to learn more about how the Mini camera Small App was developed. Read more after the jump.

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Today, we release a beta version of our new flash tool for Xperia devices, which enables you to put on standard Sony software* on a Sony Xperia™ smartphone which has the boot loader unlocked. This functionality has often been requested by the open Android™ community, and now we’re glad to support it. Please note that the phone still stays unlocked, and that the warranty may still be voided. As this is a beta version, only a limited number of phone models are supported to begin with. Read on for instructions and more information, and to find out how provide us feedback – we are really eager to hear what you think!

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Today, we’ve just announced Xperia E, a new addition to the Xperia™ smartphone range. This affordable smartphone comes with HD voice, data usage monitoring, and battery management. It also comes in a dual SIM version called Xperia™ E _dual. Both these versions are powered by a 1 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon™ processor, have a 3.5” HVGA screen, and will be available from Q1 2013. Also, Xperia™ E launches with Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean), while Xperia™ E _dual launches initially on Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) but will be upgraded to Android 4.1. Read more about the features of Xperia E and Xperia™ E _dual after the jump.

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Today, Sony contributes three new plugins to the Jenkins software tool: Build Failure Analyzer plugin, Metadata plugin and External Resource Dispatcher plugin. Jenkins is a software development tool that is used for building and testing software continuously during the development. At Sony, we are heavy users of Jenkins, and we like to contribute to making it even more useful for everyone else using it. And by making these plugins available, we can get valuable feedback from the Jenkins community. Learn more after the jump, as Robert Sandell and Tomas Westling from our software tools department explains more!

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