As Google released their source code this week, without any further delay, Sony began playing their game and probably, they won it too. Everyone is itching to get their hands on the latest version of Android, Android 5.0 Lollipop. While Sony is celebrating by officially bringing AOSP Android 5.0 builds for Xperia Z3, Z2 and Z1. Yes, you read it right.

Other than Nexus, Motorola and HTC devices are getting Android 5.0 officially by the end of this year or the first month of next. Sony themselves are looking at sometime around the beginning of 2015. Sony seems to currently working on their flagships, the Xperia Z3, Z2 and Z1, as they revealed their AOSP version of these handsets running lollipop 5.0. The development is still in beta stage, Sony have a program running, which helps them to get their customers feedback about how the software is running on these devices.

The beta program is called 3beta and is a pilot program they have running in Sweden at the moment, similar to Motorola network, where Sony is giving a selected number of Sony fans the opportunity to test drive Xperia Z3 and Xperia Z3 Compact devices running an early version of the AOSP Android 5.0 Lollipop build. The premise is pretty simple – gather as much early feedback as humanly possible in order to make the Sony User Experience on Android Lollipop as good as it possibly can be, before commercial rollout next year.

These builds won’t have Sony’s Timespace UI, since they’re AOSP builds, the users still have to wait to know about Sony’s Timespace Material UI. But, Sony is seen pretty good in AOSP builds for developers, these versions may not have any kind of customization by Sony, possibly no Google apps (including Playstore). But developers can use Google source code and Sony’s binaries to develop their own custom ROMs based on AOSP.

Sony has a goal to bring Android 5.0 Lollipop to users in the beginning of next year, which seems like a fairly quick turn around. Hope, everything goes well with Sony, and they provide a tough competition for the other device makers, whether it is HTC, Motorola and perhaps the Nexus devices with Android 5.0.