Sony WM1AM2 and WM1ZM2 Android Walkman Optimization Guide

[LanceSaintPaul]

I must also add my thanks too! One of the first things I did was to utilize the info here & via the ABD (?) application it was easy to do.

 

[Lépine]

FYI

The amount of ram saved is considerable. My unit went from 1767MB/3597MB to 1399MB/3597MB so a savings of 10% memory. That's a lot of junk that was sitting in memory doing nothing useful for audio. I kept the Google Play Store.

 

[Lépine]

I tried an experiment and removed the text to speech Marvin Talk. It saves considerable amount of ram. Is there any consequences to it? So far I haven't found a problem. Total of 28% reduction in memory consumption.

By the way, from the out of box to now is 1Gb of RAM reduction! I'm old, I remember when that was enough memory for a Data General IBM mainframe clone to run an application for 50 people concurrently!

 

[maceto]

Definitely remove the default keyboard and use a smaller launcher.

I don’t recall what I removed or not so I can’t help you there, sorry

 

[Lépine]

I am pretty happy so far with the results. Maybe went a bit too far since now I can't seem to find the play store even though I have not uninstalled the applications marked *.gms I don't know why there is no longer any registration of the application on Android...

The walkman sounds nice, I just don't have that good of a memory to know exactly how much improvement there is in sound quality. Only can see how much more efficiently system resources are allocated.

If there is something I think has improved for sure is the speed of scrolling through albums. This seems more responsive.

 

[Sonywalkmanuser]

Thank you for this guide. I can't say for sure how much of an improvement I am experiencing after uninstalling the unneeded applications; however, I am enjoying the smoothness and clarity of my 1Zm2 and Noble Ragnar combination. My Sony sounds effortless which is wonderful and relaxing. However great or minute the differences are they are certainly appreciated. ADB AppControl is another great tip, I downloaded it and used it to debloat. Very simple and apparently easy to revert back in case of issues.

Regards

S

One more step to use:
https://www.lifewire.com/turn-off-android-phone-sensors-5524799

Turning off sensors will power down the accelerometer chip on your Walkman. It may help to improve battery life and also reduce unnecessary processing load on your Walkman which in turn reduces emi noise. Some of us have notice very slight sound improvements from sensors off. Do note you lose automatic screen rotation but I don’t think you need automatic screen rotation for music playback.

 

[Sonywalkmanuser]

I tried an experiment and removed the text to speech Marvin Talk. It saves considerable amount of ram. Is there any consequences to it? So far I haven't found a problem. Total of 28% reduction in memory consumption.

By the way, from the out of box to now is 1Gb of RAM reduction! I'm old, I remember when that was enough memory for a Data General IBM mainframe clone to run an application for 50 people concurrently!

Text to speech can be removed without any issues at all. This is just another non-essential android system app that doesn’t have any functionality for the purposes of music playback.

 

[Sonywalkmanuser]

Definitely remove the default keyboard and use a smaller launcher.

I don’t recall what I removed or not so I can’t help you there, sorry

Can replace Google keyboard(gboard) with Microsoft swift keyboard. It has a lower memory footprint and seems more responsive.

 

[Sonywalkmanuser]

Just to note there are three apps that is required to be all enabled for google playstore to work properly:

Google Play Services
Google Play Store
Google Services Framework (required for Google account sign-in to work)

Do not remove them via adbcontrol or adb command if you still want Google playstore to work. What I recommend is to just disable these three apps(to conserve memory) and only enable them back together as and when you need do housekeeping(install/update apps)

 

[Sonywalkmanuser]

Also consider to disable the following to remove unnecessary sound annoyance to your music listening:

Settings > Sound > Advanced > Other Sounds >
Screen locking sound
Charging sounds
Touch sounds

 

[Sonywalkmanuser]

For those who don’t mind a text based minimalist highly efficient UI, this is a good replacement, making your Walkman look more like a Microsoft Zune dap from the past:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.aurhe.ap15&hl=en&gl=US

It uses much less gpu and processor resources if compared to the default android quickstep launcher(which has widgets and icons to draw). It should help with improving responsiveness of the Walkman and reduce power consumption(if you do switch apps often)

Also it removes that unnecessary Google search bar from the screen as well.

 

[Lépine]

Just to note there are three apps that is required to be all enabled for google playstore to work properly:

Google Play Services
Google Play Store
Google Services Framework (required for Google account sign-in to work)

Do not remove them via adbcontrol or adb command if you still want Google playstore to work. What I recommend is to just disable these three apps(to conserve memory) and only enable them back together as and when you need do housekeeping(install/update apps)

So in plain English, do not remove this. I found out this was why I lost the playstore.

.\\adb uninstall --user 0 com.android.vending

 

[Sonywalkmanuser]

So in plain English, do not remove this. I found out this was why I lost the playstore.

.\\adb uninstall --user 0 com.android.vending

yes com.android.vending is the internal app name for Google playstore. Can you restore it from backup? If not you might have to factory reset the Walkman to restore it.

 

[Lépine]

I believe there is a sonic improvement, but like I said it is not so obvious that I can remember the differences from 30 minutes prior to completing the uninstall of the majority of the bloatware. One performance metric that is quite obvious is not only the memory occupied by the my final resident applications, but also the increase in speed to complete tasks such as rebuilding the library from within the Sony app or scrolling through the songs and albums. Rebuilding the library must be close to 40% reduction in time. Scrolling through images is nearly 30% faster or more. So some of the idle apps definitely were taking up cpu resources that are now freed. I never saw the RAM saturated, but I imagine task handling must improve if there are less applications to prioritize or respond to system interrupts. With a goal to use the most minimal processor capable of running the Sony app, it makes sense to me that each additional task can impact the UI experience.

 

[Lépine]

yes com.android.vending is the internal app name for Google playstore. Can you restore it from backup? If not you might have to factory reset the Walkman to restore it.

I did a rest to factory several times to locate the application. I am fine now. There is no downside other than loosing the accumulated time on the balanced port and single ended port data. Oh well