It’s easy to claim that Android is more open than iPhone, but many manufacturers still have their software locked down in order to stop developers tinkering with it at lower levels. That’s not stopped a thriving hacker community spiring up around Google’s operating system, and in a surprise move this week, Sony Ericsson has announced it’s actually working with some of them to make custom software you can run on your Sony Ericsson Xperia Android phone.
Ever heard of CyanogenMod? It’s one of the most popular unofficial Android builds out there: it’s fast, stuffed full of features your Samsung or HTC Android phone simply doesn’t have out of the box, and works on a heap of different handsets.
The team behind it are also who Sony Ericsson have turned to in an initiative called “FreeXperia”, working with them to create custom ROMs (Android software builds) for phones including the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play and Xperia Arc.
Speaking on the company’s blog, Sony Ericsson head of developer relations Karl-Johan Dahlström said that he was “impressed by the passion shown and decided to help out with some bits and pieces, since we are aware that Sony Ericsson phones have been somewhat difficult to work with from an open developer point of view.”
“A few proprietary solutions needed to be explained and we helped them with that. This included the camera, where we provided debugged and rebuilt camera library binaries, which we will soon make available on Developer World under a special EULA license. We also supported the group with approximately 20 devices, to make their work easier.”
“The overall open developer community is important to Sony Ericsson, and we hope to learn from it, and share knowledge ourselves.”
To be clear, Sony Ericsson is still going to leave you with the bill if any of these ROMs brick your phone, as they void your warranty, but it’s a notable step forward: sometimes it takes someone who’s just coding for the fun of it to show you what you’re doing wrong. We all stand to gain from that.
Last month, Samsung hired CyanogenMod founder Steve Kondik, while iPhone jailbreak hacker “Comex” revealed he had been taken on as an intern by Apple. Earlier this year, HTC unlocked the boot loader on its Android handsets which was preventing them from being hacked and modified by eager Android coders.
(via Sony Ericsson blog)
