Sony has offered people a hint of what Xperia owners can expect from Android KitKat 4.4 and 4.4.2 when they arrive on the Xperia Z series, the SP, T, TX and V at some point this year. A lot of the features are said to be based around the Xperia Sirius and Z1, these include two user interfaces, new battery managers and new camera modes.
The Sony Sirius UI was leaked with two types, Xperia and a Simple home screen. The icons have changed and this seems to include the battery icon and settings menu. The new UI on Sirius brings with it more personalisation choices for notification and status bar icons.
With Jelly Bean 4.3 Sony has introduced Smart Social apps and this comes with a new user interface along with many choices of modes for the camera. The Xperia Z1 along with the Z Ultra Z and more Z series handsets are looking to get some exclusive camera features from Sirius, these may include TimeShift video, Background Defocus and much more.
Smart app have now received an update and come with a new look. The Close All button is a part of Recent Apps and there is the introduction of a new feature called Smart Backlight, this works along the lines of Smart Stay offered by Samsung. There is white balance, smart call handling, double tap to wake and an answering machine in the Android 4.4.2 update.
There are new sound options for the Xperia Sirius and this comes with audio accessory support along with high resolution audio through USB. The phone will have S Force audio engine along with Clear Audio and xLoud engines that are are on the majority of Xperia handsets.
There are plenty of personalisation choices and owners can combine customisation in notifications along with status bars and there are My Xperia themes and wallpapers. Jelly Bean 4.3 only offers support My Xperia Themes with no further customisation at the moment.
With KitKat based on Xperia Sirius Sony have updated power management and there is the STAMINA mode, low battery and location based Wi-Fi. Queue background data will be able to save battery life as the background data will be sent at certain times.
The Sony Xperia Z series should get updated to KitKat at some point this year, while the Xperia SP, T, TX and V could have to wait for a while as Android 4.3 is set to roll out towards the end of January.
