By admin
28th September 2010.
09:14
Category Archives: features
This morning my friends over at our Extras department announced a new very cool accessory.
It’s called the Sony Ericsson LiveView™ and is kind of a new thing altogether so not that easy to describe, perhaps this video that Albin and Marcus put together does it best :-)
What is does is that is sits on your wrist (with an included wrist band) or as a clip somewhere and gives you a quick view of what’s going on in your phone. Like a second wireless interactive mini display. This means that you can have your phone in you pocket or in a bag and still be alerted with notifications on incoming stuff or keept track of other things. It has an OLED screen with 128×128 pixels and some interaction elements such as 4-way navigation (touch sensors at the front, just at the edges of the screen) and two hard buttons, one for power on and off and for menu selection.
There are some given use-cases included already from launch, like notifications on incoming calls and messages, Facebook status updates etc. The cool thing however is of course that this device is available for use by any application that wants to. Think of this as kind of the usual Android desktop widgets but instead in a physical form, away from your phone. This makes this device quite an enabler for lots of cool ideas going forward. As you are aware there are thousands of great Android apps out there and I’m sure many of them could improve and evelove by use this device in cool ways. Then there might also even be some new applications ideas that are possible to realise now with this device that wasn’t even possible without it.
It will be sold as a stand alone device and start selling in around the same timeframe as our X10 products are updated (it needs Android 2.x to work). It will also be sold in different packages from us and from our partners. The currently finalised example is an “Experience Pack” with LiveView, a sporty style armband for having your phone on your arm and the SportyPal™ Pro application from CreationPal.
So – how does it work?!
It’s basically like an Android desktop widget but in physical form and its controlled over Bluetooth from an application in your phone called LiveView™ Application. This application will be available for download from Android Market and after it’s installed other 3rd party application can through different APIs plug into that and make use of the LiveView™ device. In the LiveView™ Application on your phone you can also scan Android Market for LiveView™ enabled applications to find more cool stuff to download. More information for developers such as documentation, APIs etc will be made available at our Developer World web site.
These are the specs and default included features: (find the full press release here)
| Music player control | Play, pause, next, previous track and volume adjustment. Track title display |
| Social Networking Services | Display Facebook™ updates. Display Twitter™ updates |
| Messaging | Display incoming texts. Display RSS feeds |
| Calls | Show phone number for incoming calls. Mute ringer for incoming phone calls. List of missed calls. |
| Other | Calendar reminders. Find your phone. Display time and date. |
| Connectivity | Bluetooth™ technology. Micro USB connector. Bluetooth™ range approximately 10m |
| Screen | 1,3”colour OLED display, 128×128 pixels |
| Compatibility | Compatible with the Sony Ericsson Xperia™ X10, Sony Ericsson Xperia™ X10 mini and Sony Ericsson Xperia™ X10 mini pro and most other brands on Android 2.0 and above. For updated compability chart see www.sonyericsson.com/liveview |
| Facts 1)2) | Size:3.5 x 3.5×1.1cm. Typical consumer battery usage time: 4 days |
| Availability and versions | Available in selected markets from Q4 2010 |
| Colour |
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| Standard kit content |
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I’ve seen all your questions around the planned Android 2.1 update of the current XPERIA range. I really hear your eagerness and thirst for more information – and of course the update itself.
We have earlier given some information on what to expect from this update and said that the roll-out was planned to start late Q3.
The plan for the added features and Android 2.1 step-up still holds but unfortunately we need a couple of more weeks before we are ready to start the roll-out.
The revised plan is to start the roll-out from end of October and onwards.
We are of course not happy about the change of launch timing but we have had to spend some additional time on the software to really makes sure we roll-out with the right quality and user experience.
When it comes to what to expect from the updated software all three X10 models will be updated to Android 2.1 and the Xperia X10 will also get HD video recording with continuous auto focus among many other things.
The key changes for the different products are the following:
Xperia X10:
- HD video recording with continuous auto-focus for high quality videos
- Upgrade of the Android platform to Android 2.1
- New back up and restore application, with extended content back up
- 5 homescreens for apps, widgets, shortcuts and folders
- Social phonebook which automatically syncs contact pictures from Facebook and shows when your friends are online
Xperia X10 mini and X10 mini pro:
- Improved Bluetooth functionality with support for sending and receiving pictures, contacts and more
- New backup and restore application with extended content back up
- Automatic synchronization of your contact pictures between Facebook and your phone book
- Improved ways of handling pictures, audio, text and numbers in your messages
- Upgrade of the Android platform to Android platform 2.1
Over the coming weeks we will here on the product blog keep you updated with visual and video examples on what your phone will look like and be able to do after the update!
I’d also like to highlight that the update will be made available in a phased roll-out which means that different “kits” get the update at different times. It will take some additional weeks from end of October before all different kits have the new software available.
What we mean by a “kit” is a different configuration, i.e. colour of the phone, bundled accessories but most importantly in this case different software configurations.
The difference in software between different kits is mainly related to included languages, settings, applications etc – all this to comply with different legal and operator requirements.
A software upgrade roll-out is similar to a normal product launch, i.e. we roll out the products in a phased manner as the kits are completed. This is due to global and local type approvals and network testing and the same apply for a software upgrade.
From the end of October you will be able to follow availability of the new software on a market by market basis here on the blog.
I will keep you posted with more information and details as we go along.
When we work together with operators we often together add or tweak functionality specific to that operator, its partners or a specific consumer target group. In the XPERIA X10 we have in some markets made special integrations of this kind into Timescape and Mediascape. In the example that Gustaf describes in the video below you see a cooperation made with the operator Telia in Sweden. The service integrated is the Spotify music streaming service (www.spotify.com) which is a great success here in Sweden. The integration makes Spotify appear as an online music service in Mediascape and songs played through Spotify shows up as event tiles in Timescape. There are of course other things made on other markets so this is just one example.
If the sky was the limit – what would you ideally have integrated?
Finally an update on the question of Equalizer for Satio and Vivaz. As some of you might know one important feedback from you the readers of this blog has been that you want an equalizer in Satio and Vivaz. Since I got this feedback and saw your engagement in the issue I’ve worked quite a lot with trying to make that happen. As it turned out it unfortunately hasn’t been possible to add it in an integrated way in a software update. However some real hero colleagues of mine decided to try to build it as a separate application instead so I’m now delighted to at least offer a kind of solution for those of you that have been missing an equalizer.
For most markets there is now an free application called “Equalizer” available on PlayNow in the music category under applications. This equalizer will give you the following different options: Off, Classical, Jazz, Dance, Party, Pop, Rock, Spoken Word, Loudness, Mega Bass and Treble Boost. As I understood it it will equalize all music played in the phone, also the setting it makes is global and stay there if the Equalizer application is closed and also even stays after rebooting the phone. There are two important notes though: First of all this application needs the latest update to work on Satio (on Vivaz it works on the launch SW of course) and also since it’s a separate application it needs to be started separately when you want to start using it i.e. it’s not included under options in e.g. the music player. When an equalizer setting has been chosen it should stay even if the application is closed or the phone rebooted.
I’m well aware that it would have been even better to have a fully integrated equalizer and I’m sorry that we don’t have that. Still I hope that this solution will work for those of you that really feel that an equalizer has been missed a lot.
Here are some screenshots and a short video I shot to show you how it works. (Sorry for the shaky video – I didn’t have my tripod in the office today so I had to navigate the Satio with one hand while filming with a Vivaz with the other hand)
The next software update for Satio is now just around the corner. Timing on the update is however different for different markets and operator branded versions. The first ones should start to come up this weekend and then continue over the coming week. However it might differ slightly between markets as some kits might need approval from operators and can therefore take some more time, still I would expect most versions of Satio to have the new software available in latest a few weeks from now.
The update will be available through the Update Service client found at www.sonyericsson.com/update
A software update is important from many perspectives, of course it should rectify some issues, optimize performance even further etc but for this case I’m glad to announce that it will also add and improve some features.
Here’s the list of highlights:
- Support for WVGA video recording – The already great video recording will be enhanced to fit the wide screen format and hence resolution is also slightly increased to 864 * 480 pixles. (the preset size will still be VGA, user has to change to get WVGA)
- Upload of pictures to Facebook – It will be possible to upload pictures directly from the picture menu you have on the home screen or from the Media UI.
- Youtube video uploading – It will be possible to upload videos to Youtube directly from the Media UI.
- Conversational messaging – “Conversations” will be nicely integrated in the messaging menu in order to easily find and inspire to more conversations with your friends.
- DLNA support – The new software will support DLNA media server for easy transfer of audio and still pictures. (Note that video is not supported)
- UI improvements – On top of above, several minor UI improvements have been done in order to optimize the user experience.
- The Facebook application that is now available on PlayNow for free download will be included in the sw.
So in a few days time I think that at least many of you will be able to try this new update out. Please let us know how it turns out in the comments section.
Have a great weekend all!
