Earlier this year, Sony announced the Xperia Beta program, which as the name implies basically allows Sony Xperia owners to beta test upcoming Android updates for your phone, or in this case it was to test the Android 6.0 Marshmallow update. Unfortunately it looks like Sony has decided that continuing the program is no longer worth their resources.
Sony Mobile has recently confirmed that the Xperia Beta program will be shutting down and that there will be no more planned beta firmware releases. The good news is that it seems that whatever was being tested is good to go because Sony has confirmed that new firmware will be pushed out to Xperia Z2/Z3 owners in the coming weeks, and that those who were part of the beta program will be getting the update automatically.
It is unclear as to why Sony decided to do away with the program. We have to wonder if it could have anything to do with Sony’s recent announcement about focusing less on India, China, and the US. It is a bit of a pity since we’re sure that Xperia owners would have loved to be kept abreast of Android updates and even participating in it.
No word on whether or not Sony will bring back the program at a later date, maybe with the launch of Android 7.0 Nougat, but either way for now we guess we’ll have to bid goodbye to it.
Filed in . Read more about Android, Android Updates and Sony.