Sony’s aspirations to provide a ‘near Nexus-like’ experience for their Xperia phones, using AOSP software has taken another step forward, with Sony announcing AOSP based recoveries for selected unlocked Xperia phones.
Sony has so far released custom AOSP based kernels for a range of Xperia phones, this latest release gives developers access to a recovery mode on a separate partition to the Android OS. With a separate partition, this allows developers to perform a range of functions not normally available to your stock recovery, such as the ability to restore data and flash custom ROMs.
The custom recovery is available with the latest software from Sony’s flashing tool, for the Sony Xperia Z1, Xperia Z1 Compact, Xperia Z Ultra, Xperia E3, Xperia M2, Xperia T2 Ultra, and Xperia T3 devices, as long as they have an unlocked boot loader, though Sony is working to make recovery mode available for more devices.
Head over to the Sony Developer website for more information on the process and more instructions for getting and using the AOSP recovery. You can also check out their video on the AOSP recovery mode as well: