The Sony Xperia 1 III and Xperia 5 III start receiving Android 12 updates

[Redaktion]

Sony has started upgrading the Xperia 1 III and Xperia 5 III to Android 12, the first smartphones in the company's roster to receive the OS upgrade. According to Sony, Android 12 adds scrolling screenshots, an improved one-handed mode and better privacy features.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/The-Sony-Xperia-1-III-and-Xperia-5-III-start-receiving-Android-12-updates.590928.0.html

[pixelado92]

About those privacy features: I thought the privacy icons (for when camera, geolocation, etc. are used in the background) were part of AOSP since Android 10 haha. At least LineageOS 17.1 made it seem so.

Anyhow, they're really useful, they helped me catch [an instant messaging app that's very popular in developing countries, which has a green logo, but the spam filter wont let me type the name of] stealthily using the camera while I was doing completely unrelated stuff. I guess that's just Facebo ... err I mean "Meta" doing what they do best?

[TheTopMostDog]

The android 12 update is the single most disappointing part of my xperia 1 iii purchase. The new update is abysmal, with objectively (and subjectivity) worse ui design and actually broken features. I wish i never updated, it makes me want to sell my phone and buy a Samsung. I have to wait 3x as long for multi window switch to open now, notifications have huge margins meaning they show less information, notifications are invisible until you've swiped more than half way down your screen meaning you can no longer peek the most recent notification, quick settings now have labels and take up so much of the screen for no reason, Sony's implementation of android 12 offers no way to change the accent color meaning in stuck with pale blue (pixel phones have wallpaper and styles app, Sony only offers wallpaper app), the power button quick menu for Google pay and smart light controls are simply gone, the font in the settings menu is double that of anywhere else in the os (and live breaks are huge, is this for accessibility??), recent apps no longer has a transparent background that you can tap to access home, and one handed mode halves your screen now instead of scaling everything down and not losing any visible screen space. What's worse is if you look into these things, people have been complaining for seven months in closed beta, and Google still pushed it. I genuinely enjoy my phone less now because of the update, and i urge every Xperia mk 3 owner to ignore the update when it's made available to you. I'm not sure whether to sell my phone or void my warranty and try to roll back. I wish Sony would help!

[pixelado92]

The android 12 update is the single most disappointing part of my xperia 1 iii purchase. The new update is abysmal, with objectively (and subjectivity) worse ui design and actually broken features. I wish i never updated...

That's very sad! I also wish there was an official way to roll back when you are less than happy with an update haha. Ironically, root users with custom recoveries have it much better in that regard because they can just backup everything and restore later if things don't go suavecito haha.

Hopefully Sony (or Google) will address those pain points, though having a bad release go live even though they had people complaining about such things in the closed beta doesn't exactly paint a pretty picture.