[XPERIA X10 General] junexyz:
More snippets on Android 2.1 Xperia X10 update

Rikard Skogberg from the SE Product Blog has once again been active in the comment section giving little snippets of information that we have consolidated below. There are no major surprises: he confirms that the DLNA update will now come in the next update (following Android 2.1). He also says that the Android 2.1 update will have to be done at the PC in full rather than OTA (although OTA notifications will still be there).

He also confirms the Android 2.1 release date for late October as well as confirming no multitouch, no equaliser and no Arabic fonts. Interestingly he says that Sony Ericsson has learned their lesson and will tinker with the core Android code much less next time round and will instead build layers on top that should make it easier to deliver timely OS upgrades.

Latest news on Android 2.1 Xperia X10 update

On Android 2.1 Xperia X10 release date

“Regarding why there’s no firm date. There is of course a detailed internal plan and as you say unbranded kits will in most cases be before branded ones. However even unbranded kits differ between markets and all of them need a separate approval and for some markets also local type approvals. Also why “end of October” instead of a date for the start. I do understand that you want a date for when we start but since a plan always is just a plan I wouldn’t want to commit to a date and then if something changes have to change it again. Also much of the things I write here later spread (even sometimes without the right context) in other forums and websites and I wouldn’t want people to get false expectations. (imagine e.g. a big gadget blog picking up on news of a date and then everyone reading that blog expect their phones to be upgradeable on that day, without even knowing about the gradual nature of this roll-out). Instead I will try to keep you posted here on the blog as soon as we start and then going forward.”

Update notification

“The phone does automatically check for updates at regular intervals so consumers will get a notification in the status bar that the update is available. When you get that you will be instructed to connect to a PC to do the actual update though (since this big update is too big and “total” to do as an OTA-update.) Then there will of course be lots of information in our support channels, on our web page and on local level also included in campaigns and communication together with our partner operators and retailers.”

No back-porting of Froyo functionality in Android 2.1

“No this update does not have Wi-Fi tethering nor 16M colours, sorry.”

“Regarding custom solutions for things missing in 2.1 – No I haven’t seen anything about e.g. Wi-Fi tethering, apps on SD nor flash, sorry.”

On Froyo

“Regarding Android 2.2 I still only have the same answer as earlier – there is a next updated planned but at this point it’s not decided whether that update includes an OS step-up or not.”

Performance after Android 2.1 update

“Android 2.1 should in general have increased performance compared to 1.6 and I’m sure a lot of our stuff on top has been optimized as well.”

Linpack Benchmark result:

6.896 MFLOPS

12.16 seconds

Norm res: 5.68

Precision: 2.22..E-16

fps2d:

avg = 31 stdev = 4.27

On the browser

“Double tapping somewhere toggles between zoomed in and zoomed out mode so reading web pages is a nicer experience than before.”

There will be no Flash support (not even Flash Lite), just HTML5.

DLNA support will roll out in subsequent update

“Thanks for your feedback and ideas on home connectivity, DLNA, remote play etc. There are such plans, earlier we announced a plan to introduce DLNA in the next update (the one after this one) of the X10. That update is still work in progress though so I can’t really give any details or further commitments at this time.”

On Timescape

“Regarding Timescape opening up the touch.facebook.com page instead of the application. That’s still there and I also think it would be better with the application. There’s still not the option to open Facebook posts or tweets and comment/reply to them within Timescape. I don’t know the plans for the future on that but I wouldn’t bet on it. The thinking is not that Timescape should replace those normal apps but instead just be the place to go for a quick overview of everything at one place.”

On low in-call volume

“I’ve answered the question around in-call volume before and as I understand it the optimization that was possible in SW should already be done in the earlier updates. I haven’t seen any information on measurable improvements in this update and I haven’t noticed any major difference personally either, sorry.”

No equalizer

“Regarding equalizer and Mega Bass – nothing added in this update and at this point I don’t have info on future potential of such things either.”

No Arabic fonts in update

“Regarding Arabic language I don’t think it’s added, at least I can’t find it in the language selection in the phone. However I know that there has been a wider question around this and that it to some extent also were about just fonts needed.”

No Multitouch

“To make one thing very clear though to make sure you don’t have false expectations – This update does not give pinch-zoom or other multi touch things.”

On Wi-Fi Bug

“Regarding the Wi-Fi issue – Even though I have quite bad cellular signal where I live I still haven’t been able to reproduce the issue of loosing Wi-Fi when loosing 3G (I guess that’s what you mean?) So I’m not sure I can reproduce it myself and therefore can’t say for sure if it’s been fixed or not.”

Call lock bug

“Regarding if the phone locks after a call or not. I haven’t made any real tests with different timing and such but I think it works like this: If you get a call while the phone is locked the phone will lock again when the call is ended. If you instead have your phone unlocked and make an outgoing call it doesn’t lock after the call is ended.”

No smart dialling

“No there’s still no smart dialling in the stock dialler of the X10. For the minis there is a widget included called Smart Search that does it nicely. There are also lots of 3rd party diallers available on Android Market that has nice cool features for smart dialling and other stuff.”

Live Wallpapers

No live wallpapers have been made by Sony Ericsson so far

The future

“Regarding building work arounds for the things missing in 2.1. I do understand that in theory it would be possible – however if there is something we have learned over this year it is to not dig too deep into the underlying OS but rather build things on top. This of course to be able to be much more responsive on OS revision step-ups in the future. “

“We do know that we are behind in the Android race right now and we are working hard to make sure it doesn’t happen again going forward. Android is at the very core of our portfolio and I hope we will be able to meet much more of the requirements of the more technical early adopters in the future.”

Disclosure: All of the above quotes were taken from this post and range from October 14 to 21.