After today’s big announcement of the bigger version of the Sony Xperia Z, The Xperia Z Ultra, Sony have made things good with owners of the original handset by announcing that the new Android Jelly Bean 4.2.2 OS will be released for the company’s flagship Z smartphone in the coming weeks.
Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean will be pushed out to handsets in the coming weeks and needs to be installed via Sony’s PC Companion software. Handsets running the current 4.1.2 software version (which it launched with) will receive a notification on their smartphones stating that a firmware update is available and they will then need to connect the device to a PC.
Currently the update has been confirmed for a handful of countries across the EU including Spain and the Netherlands and also a bit further afield in Hong Kong but currently there is no news on when the update will be released in the UK.
The news comes from a forum posting on talk.sonymobile.com where the update has been spotted and downloaded by Xperia Z users. Word is that the LTE /4G models of the smartphone are receiving the update first.
The actual change from 4.1.2 to 4.2.2 offers up a number of UI changes, such as the ability to use special lock screen widgets, but its mostly a security and internal update to the Android OS.
The update will be for SIM-free handset firsts, with UK networks then given the ball to release their own versions of the Android OS with network branding on in the weeks and months following.