Yesterday Sony announced the devices that they plan on providing an update to Android Marshmallow to in the coming weeks and months. Now the company has opened up beta testing of Marshmallow to 10,000 Xperia Z3 and Xperia Z3 Compact owners. The news comes from Sony’s blog and is going to be strictly limited to these devices and the first 10,000 users who sign up and meet the criteria.
For now the beta cycles are only open to these two devices and you must reside in one of the following countries: Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Iceland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, United Kingdom, Ireland and Germany. That’s right, the United States is not included in this beta program.
In the blog post, Sony outlines that the update to Marshmallow is an all encompassing effort for Sony and their apps, not just the base OS.
The software is built on some of the key feedback from our first “Concept for Android” – the users helped us create an experience built on the fundamentals of: prolonged battery life, smooth and fast performance, sleek user interface, Sony apps and experiences and frequent, timely updates. We’ve included all of that here and also hope to road test a few new Sony experiences along the way…
Rather than merely previewing a new software version, this is about a proof-of-concept way of working, whereby we build a new user experience – and more importantly, process – from the ground up, that will also allow us to be more responsive in developing and rolling out the Sony Android upgrades Xperia users want, more quickly.
If you meet the country criteria and have either an Xperia Z3 or Xperia Z3 Compact, you can go to this page and sign up.
If you don’t meet the criteria, don’t be too disheartened as unless you are running a Nexus device, everyone is waiting for the Marshmallow update (including some Nexus owners still). The good news is Sony is bringing it to a wide range of devices in their lineup.
