There’s Still Hope: Android 5.0 Lollipop Shown Running on Sony Xperia C3 ~ The World is Mine

Mar 9, 2015

There’s Still Hope: Android 5.0 Lollipop Shown Running on Sony Xperia C3

3/09/2015 08:00:00 PM

dannzfay

Sony might have confirmed the Android 5.0 Lollipop update for its Xperia Z smartphone line, and even if we are yet to see it roll out for these devices, we can be pretty confident that Sony will deliver what it promised a few months ago.

However, this weekend, a new piece of information came to light. It appears Sony does not plan to update to Lollipop handsets that are not part of the Xperia Z family. The company made this pretty clear saying that “We can advise that the Android 5.0 Lollipop update is going to be released for the entire Xperia Z series only, we do apologize.” This response prompted complaints from a lot of owners of non-Xperia Z handsets on various forums, which in turn probably made the Japanese company think twice about its decision. Overnight, the company’s stance has changed from no update for the non-Xperia Z series to “no comment.” The device maker tweeted, “We can’t comment on upgrades for further products at this time - please stay tuned to our blog for the latest information.”

Has Sony changed its mind so fast?

A few hours after the happening, the story gets another twist. The folks at Xperia Blog have managed to dig up some screenshots showing the Sony Xperia C3 handset running on Android 5.0 Lollipop. Yes, the C and Z letters are pronounced pretty similarly, but this sounds like a rather lousy reason to explain Sony’s almost bipolar change of heart. On the other hand, it’s possible that Sony initially had plans to update non-Xperia Z phones to Lollipop, but after internally testing it on the Xperia C3, the company realized it wouldn’t be able to pull it off and abandoned the endeavor. The screenshots discovered by Xperia Blog depict things like the Recent Apps Menu, Lock Screen notifications, Quick Settings page, and your usual Material Design tweaks.

Even if the theory we shared with you above might be what really happened and Sony was testing the update internally, the leaked photographs still give us hope that the update for non-Xperia Z devices will eventually come along. Sony has a history of being quite ambivalent. Back when the Xperia E4 was announced, the company itself seemed to be in the dark about which OS the handset would ship with, Android 5.0 Lollipop or Android 4.4.4 KitKat (both versions were mentioned in official documents). The latter turned out to be the case.