It’s great to know that Sony Ericsson is really working hard to make its customers pleased with the company! A week back they scribbled on their blog about how hard developing a ROM is.

Now, they’re giving an option for the public to taste the ICS for the first time. But it won’t be a good news for a lot many because:

1. The ROM is available only for arc S, ray and neo V.

2. It’s just the alpha version and a couple of options are unavailable which includes basic telephony, bluetooth and wifi.

I know what you’re thinking now! “So, what’s the use of such a release?!” Good question. SE has the answer:

“Another ambition with this release is to work with all of the talented developers in the open community to get feedback on this alpha ROM. If you download and install the alpha ROM, please try out the software and go to our Ice Cream Sandwich alpha ROM survey for Xperia™ phones, to send us your feedback. It is very much appreciated – the summary of this survey will be used for future product and software strategies short term and long term. Your voice counts!”

If you want to discuss this alpha ROM initiative, please check out the Ice Cream Sandwich alpha ROM for Xperia thread on the XDA forum. Here you can discuss with other developers, and ask questions to us. We will monitor this thread and reply to any questions as soon as we can.”

This clearly sheds light to the fact that Sony Ericsson has prepared itself to take into account what the users need from their Xperias. Last year the company had a bad time; the decision to not update the 2010 Xperia handsets beyond android 2.1 resulted in a flood of criticizing comments in their blog and the facebook page. Now, this year it seems the company has made up it’s mind to give the 2011 Xperias what ever it can take. (or even more!).

Here is what they have included in ICS ROM (things are subjected to change in the final release which is rumoured to be in February or March 2012):

• New “Roboto” font.
• New “Holo” theme is supported (you are able to test apps written to make use of the Holo theme).
• Music player control from lock screen.
• Updated UI in the Settings menu.
• Updated UI in the web browser.
• Updated UI and interaction with the new messaging action bar.
• Updated UI for improved multitasking.
• Swipe to dismiss notifications, tasks and browser tabs in the Notification menu.

These are the features which are not working or either turned off:

• Google Mobile Services (GMS) apps are not included (for example, Gmail, Google Maps, etc.).
• Modem is turned off and SIM card will therefore not be recognised (this also means you can’t make any phone calls)
• Bluetooth™ is turned off.
• Wi-Fi® is turned off.
• ANT+ is turned off.
• FM-radio is turned off.

About how to install (For advanced users and those who really like to play with their phones.)

For Ordinary Users:

Source: Sony Ericsson Blog

SE is giving quite a bit these days! From announcement of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich update, to supporting FreeXperia group, Sony Ericsson is making a big step in development, and what’s more important, making a step ahead of the others. We just might see SE going up the ranks.

Making camera libraries, (essentially camera drivers) public, means that modders around the world can modify those libraries, make adjustments of their liking, and ultimately have better experience with Xperia smartphones and their cameras. Similar situation already happened with Sony Ericsson cellphones, now you got whole array of camera drivers that are better than original ones, even that they are model-dependent.

This libraries come with special EULA licence (in archive), it’s not that long, it’s not strict, but do read it carefully before doing anything.

SE says that they decided to do this because, at first, drivers made some trouble to FreeXperia group, as libraries they used heavily relied on Xperia’s default ROM, while FreeXperia group used custom ROMs, which didn’t totally support the camera. Next move was by Sony Ericsson. They rebuilt the drivers, essentially keeping same files, but made it less reliable on default Xperia ROM. And then they decided to make them public, as they realized that this could help people using custom ROMs, and even users with default ROM, that wanted to get out every bit of their cameras.
On the other side, we expect fixing of Xperia Mini Pro’s electromagnetic noise problem, as some believe that faulty drivers are causing trouble.

You can download the libraries here (remember to read that short license inside archive)
At the moment, it’s not very clear on how to edit libraries, but they should hopefully explain it soon at FreeXperia XDA thread

From: Aleksandar, via SE Dev World

Yes,  gentlemen, it’s official. Earlier today, Sony Ericsson posted on their product blog:

“There have been a few questions here on the blog and in our support forums regarding our upgrade plans beyond Gingerbread. We can today confirm that we plan to upgrade the entire 2011 Xperia™ portfolio* to the next version of Android known as Android 4.0 or Ice Cream Sandwich. We are working on merging our current Xperia™ experience with the new features in Android 4.0. More detailed information regarding this upgrade, timing and global availability will be communicated in due course here on the blog.

* “2011 Xperia™ Portfolio” refers to the following products: Xperia™ arc and arc S, Xperia™ PLAY, Xperia™ neo and neo V, Xperia™ mini and mini pro, Xperia™ pro, Xperia™ active, Xperia™ ray as well as Sony Ericsson Live with Walkman™”

And that “merging current Xperia experience” should mean that it will not be a stock ROM, whatsoever, I hope update won’t disable features that Xperia ROMs have, and there are many of them.

Only remaining unknown is the date. Well, as I said, I hope they don’t hurry and pack this ROM with all goodies that comes with Xperia. We shall keep you informed on any information that comes available, as well as post some screenshots from various devices as they get ICS.

Theonewithideas, from SEMC Product Blog

We already talked about it here. The rumour was it will be called Xperia Duo.
Now few things changed from then.

It will be driven by snapdragon 1.5GHz(MSM8660) dual core processor, with help of 1GB RAM, although as you may notice, images shows only 691MB. It’s jet to be seen how many MB of RAM will it have. It also has a 4.3″ screen with amazing resolution of 720 by 1280, which gives 320dpi. You will have 32GB of storage for keeping your data, unfortunately without memory card option.
And all that will be powered with 1750mAh battery.

More rumours also suggest that this will be first Sony Ericsson phone to be used with micro-SIM and will have NFC. Of course, the exception being the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arco, which is released only in Japan and is their only model with an NFC chip.

All this specifications are maybe the reason they called it Nozomi, which is also used for fastest train service in Japan.
Here are few pictures of the phone itself:

Also on next picture you can see NenaMark1 results for Nozomi:

Sources:
XperiaBlog facebook page
iandroid

More about ray: http://blog.se-nse.n…nes-ray-active/

Source: Xperia Blog

More info:

http://www.sonyerics…_specifications

Xperia Mini and Xperia Mini Pro hit pre-order on play.com .They come at £209.99 for Mini and £239.99 for Mini Pro, SIM free and unlocked. That’s about £60 difference from X10 mini/pro but, again, the specifications are much better,so it’s considerably cheap compared to what you get. Pre order is due to release on fifth of August.

Xperia Mini on play.com Xperia Mini Pro on play.com

Sony Ericsson Xperia and Xperia Pro are Sony Ericsson’s new small factor handsets. Both sport a 3 inch screen, 1GHz Snapdragon processor and an improved UXP interface to top it all off. Like their predecessors, these great features are packed into the same credit card sized form factor and like before the Pro model additionally includes a slide-out QWERTY keyboard for easier typing.

For more details of the two new minis, see here