3 ms·
AOSP directly from the manufacturer... Almost too good to be true. rubbing my eyes
by amq 10y ago
AOSP directly from the manufacturer... Almost too good to be true. rubbing my eyes
- Ambroos 10y agoSony has been doing it for a while for the Z-range. In fact, they even provided N Preview images for the Z3, as the first and only non-Nexus. The Xperia Z has a fully functional (all hardware, no major issues) Android 4.4 build a week after the 4.4 sources were released. It was the first non-Nexus with a working KitKat. Sony provided the right stuff on GitHub and their devices are very easy to develop for.
- kelnos 10y agoThe only caveat, of course, is that if you unlock the bootloader on at least the Z3 and up, you lose a bunch of "protected" functionality, including what makes the camera on these devices great. It's for this reason that my Z5c is, and will likely remain, forever locked. I used a root exploit to obtain permanent root on my old Z3c, but it felt kinda pointless since I couldn't install CM without unlocking the bootloader. (Yes, locked root made it possible to back up the DRM partition, but running CM without the DRM partition intact and the bootloader unlocked meant living with sub-optimal camera performance, so that was a non-starter for me too.) So yes, Sony's devices are "easy to develop for", if you don't mind living with crippled hardware features (permanently, in the case of the Z5) once you unlock the device.
- tdkl 10y agoIt's also hilarious that they're protecting their knowhow like this, where Sony imaging postprocessing of taken pictures is really bad. They ship capable camera sensors on their devices and are outperformed by other vendors who use their same sensors, but don't suck at image processing.