Sony Xperia Z series
Xperia Z5, Z5 Compact and Z5 Premium receiving Marshmallow update Xperia Blog

Sony has started rolling out the Android 6.0 Marshmallow version in Japan after the latest Android OS version was seeded to users in Turkey in February. The company's UK division had earlier announced that the Marshmallow rollout for the Xperia Z5 series, the Xperia Z4 Tablet and Xperia Z3+ will commence from 7 March.

The company's Japanese division posted the change logs that have been brought about with this update in detail providing some precautions and requisites before one downloads the update.

  • Version-up can be done while leaving the data, but as a precaution, please check that important data is always backed up. Please refer to the instruction manual for details of the backup
  • When performing an upgrade you will not be able to revert to a previous version
  • Before performing the version up, please close all apps
  • During the upgrade please do not turn off the power
  • If the battery is low, the battery level in the middle of the update may fail to update the shortage
  • During the upgrade you will not be able to perform any functions including sending and receiving of calls

Some of the major highlights from the update are as follows:

  • Homepage scrolling has new animation options
  • You can now set how long you want the phone to stay in vibrate mode (Ranges from 15 minutes to 8 hours to indefinitely)
  • A quick setting toggle for DND (I think that's DND) is now available in the quick settings shade
  • An option to delete the screenshot taken from the notification shade is added
  • New camera app interface
  • New podcast widget for the Music app
  • You can now select multiple contacts at once to add to your favourite contacts
  • STAMINA is still not active and may be added in sometime in April
  • Other Android Marshmallow features like Doze mode, Now on Tap, App standby etc working

From the Marshmallow updates that Sony devices have received so far it seems the company is cutting down on customisations to allow the stock Android UI to take over. This makes it imperative for the company to make the Marshmallow available for as many models as possible.

While Japan and Turkey have received the update and UK is on the way, others may have to wait for a while specially the US as the Z series was only recently released there. Meanwhile, Sony Xperia C4 and the Xperia C5 Ultra received the Android 5.1 Lollipop update in February with no indications when Marshmallow will hit the C series or whether it will at all.

More about Sony Xperia