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Google's Gingerbread Man Has Arrived
Daetrin writes "Last weekend Google received the next statue in the sweets-themed series that commemorates the major updates of the Android OS. In the past this has meant that the release of the next SDK was right around the corner. However this time there's some doubt as to what the version number will actually be. Many sites (including Slashdot) have assumed that 'Gingerbread' was synonymous with '3.0,' but now there's some evidence that everyone may have jumped the gun and the next version will actually be 2.3."
...and watch as people start to call it 'Pie in the Sky.' But, you know you can’t eat your cake and have it too.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
OK, +5 freaking weird/confusing headline... funny, tho
weinersmith
Why doesn't the summary include a picture of the gingerbread statue after making a specific reference to it?
Anyways, this has a small picture and a video with it actually being unveiled (I couldn't find a better article with an actual pic): http://www.pcr-online.biz/news/34973/Google-unveil-Android-Gingerbread
i dont care what number they call it, it sounds delicious mmmmm gingerbread
It's the new math, previously put forth by Sun when they started calling Java 1.2 "Java 2".
Not to mention version jumps from SunOS to Solaris:
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
I may be missing something, but what does it matter if it's 3.0, 2.3, named strawberry pie, or whatever? How does this impact our quality of life?
I hope its 2.3. Many of the 1.x handsets never got a 2.0 upgrade, but 2.x handsets seem to have decent offerings for upgrades in the 2.x version. I don't want to see handsets that could otherwise support Gingerbread have support dropped for them just because the marketing plan says to stop supporting certain handset when the next major version come down the pipeline.
Yes, yes, there's always rooting the device and custom firmware but that's not an option for every one (be it technical limitation or user limitation)
Heh, still waiting for OTA updates from T-mobile for my wife's Android 1.6 myTouch 3G. They've been promising it "just next month" since February :P
Achievement unlocked?
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
I sincerely hope that they maintain backward compatibility and things of that nature. Already there is a division between 1.5 (and older) and 1.6 (and newer). I would hate to see another division after that.
There has already been much said about the scattering of various (usually carrier-driven) modifications to the OS that cause compatibility problems with apps in that an app on one model/make of phone will not work with another where the OS version is the same. (That's a big deal) I think it is important that this sort of consistency problem get resolved. I am sure wireless phone carriers have no problem with users not being able to run apps that were not purchased through them. But the market will very quickly become larger than mobile phones and consistency issues need to be resolved before that happens.
It's become a cruel joke on the XDA forums for the Vibrant. Waiting on 2.2 which has been coming any minute now ever since it came out. I don't want to even think about how long it is before I'll see 2.3
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
Sorry about that, i originally had the second link, which includes a video of the unwrapping, as the first link. But then i decided to swap them because the (currently) second one went into more detail about the version confusion. I spent some time looking for a good article with a picture of the entire lineup of statues as well, but decided i already had too many links. As you seem to have noticed already there are a lot of copies of the video around but not a lot of simple pictures, at least not associated with decent articles so far.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
Hey, I got some inside information from the brother of a guy who worked for the sister of a tech support reps bosses secretaries gardener who posted on one of the android forums. We're getting updated next week!
"Lame" - Galaxar
for android 69, they should call it "cream pie"
Is it going to happen at the Thirty-One Flavors? Eh? Will it? Bueller? Bueller?
Living With a Nerd
Heh, still waiting for OTA updates from T-mobile for my wife's Android 1.6 myTouch 3G. They've been promising it "just next month" since February :P
Tell me if I'm wrong, but what incentive do the carriers have to provide OTA updates after a customer has purchased a phone and data plan? I think the answer is: very little and probably not at all. I myself would like to believe that customer satisfaction would be a good reason, but I think it's the just a matter of.. once they have your money and updates are not specifically scheduled in the contract then tough luck.
It's Tuesday, time for a google submitt-a-thon on /. ?
So does that mean we hate Apple today? Wait, that's odd days, not even, right? Or is it by the last digit of your IP address? I have such a hard time keeping these all straight.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
So does that mean we hate Apple today?
No. Get your schedule right. Apple hate day is tomorrow. Today Apple is ignored as it clearly is irrelevant in the age of the cloud and already fading into obscurity. Has been, really, for the last couple centuries. Just nobody ever bothered to notify Cupertino, so the folks there still show up for work every morning. Poor sods they are, come to think of it.
Rudolf Hess edited Mein Kampf. He was the very first grammar nazi.
There is no concept of customer satisfaction when it comes to mobile users. One, we are never satisfied. Two, the carriers don't care even if we were.
My wife lost WIFI when she upgraded to 1.6. The reason: it doesn't play well with wpa2, the fix: either use WEP or a 8 char pass-phrase. Neither of which is acceptable to me, so she doesn't get to play spades on line anymore....
I upgraded to a Motorola Cliq last December, we are still on 1.5. Tried to root it, performance started to suck so I went backwards. The have next quarter since then. I think the problem is their idiot developers cant get Blur to work on the later releases.
The Android developers group needs to set some guidelines so each carrier doesn't go off and do their own thing and keep the market all fragmented. Open source OS's are a great thing, except when fragmentation leads to stagnation. This is like the early days of Linux with incompatible code bases flying all over the place and you had to compile your kernel just to be safe.
Stupid question here, but why can't you upgrade it yourself?
Yeah, I'm pretty sure T-Mobile is lying (and there were some pretty big ads on their website and in print promising OTA updates) just to keep their older inventory moving off the shelves... that and that the "latest Android" is a swift moving target (how apt the gingerbread man reference).
Anyway, some lawyer-types ought to take them on for truth-in-advertising, prolly more money to be made there than with silly RIAA john doe suits :P
I made sure the Android phone I got for myself a few months later (myTouch Slide) was well-supported by CyanogenMOD, so I'm all set. I picked up both of them from Craigslist (no doubt by people who wanted to upgrade to the latest and greatest Android or expected something more like an iPhone)
As for my wife, she loves her "little red phone" just the way it is. It does everything she wants it to, and really not that much less than my phone. So barring an automatic update (heck, she never even updates any of her apps from the market unless I sneak in and do it), she's not going to submit to the CyanogenMOD flashing procedure :P
Screw celebrations, I want to know what's new in the API...
I mod down anyone who says "I will be modded down for this", regardless of the rest of their comment
It's good to see cheaper android phones coming out soon.
I am still waiting to upgrade from my g1 to the g2, if they can ever perma-root that thing!
I left Verizon because of the lousy, locked-down firmware they put on their phones. Customer satisfaction must count for something.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
I'm gonna have to ask for a citation here. AFAIK, pretty much the only thing we know officially about Gingerbread is that the rumors about it from a few months ago are BS.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
So you left Verizon before they had any Android phones for the behavior that they don't practice when it comes to said Android phones?
It's okay, I left Ford because of the exploding gas tanks they put in their pintos. Customer satisfaction must count for something.
Uh, no. Just no.
Eric Schmidt has said that since Android is open carriers/manufacturers aren't going to be prevented when it comes to customizing the builds they use.
However a rumored goal for Gingerbread was to give it some of the shared UI tweaks that things like HTC Sense and MotoBlur have added to /reduce/ the customizations carriers will do by making them irrelevant. But that's far and away a whole other thing than expressly forbidding it.
As for updates coming simultaneous? Don't hold your breath. Besides the fact that carriers and manufacturers will still put their own builds together there really is more to it than just customizations.
Take the original Moto Droid for instance. It's a Google Experience phone, has no Moto Blur or other "enhancements" of which you refer and still it took months for FroYo to be deployed to it compared to the Nexus.
I agree with your assessment. Once carriers develop a firmware/platform for a specific phone and it works reasonably well, there's really no reason to fix it unless there are a bunch of complaints about usability, or a bunch of gaping security holes that need to be fixed (which is common on desktop platforms, but isn't discussed much when it comes to mobile platforms).
As a nerd, I like to have the latest and greatest software/firmware, especially if it adds new functionality and runs faster, but most people won't care if they're updated or not as long as their shit "just works."
I never gave Verizon wireless a dime of my money precisely for that reason. Most carriers are bad enough, but Verizon had some very tight lock-in with no reasonable alternatives, and in some cases even charging extra for features that were a standard part of the phones.
I may not be 100% correct here, but I recall phone shopping about three years ago for a Blackberry and I believe Verizon was charging and extra fee for use of the GPS receiver. I went with Sprint because just about every feature of the phone was available without any extra charges.
Sprint had it's own limitations, specifically not supporting MMS on the Blackberry Curve, however there was a system update not long after I got it that enabled MMS functionality (instead of their silly "picture mail" service that utilized a web server and simply SMSed a link to the website).
Once carriers develop a firmware/platform for a specific phone and it works reasonably well, there's really no reason to fix it unless there are a bunch of complaints about usability, or a bunch of gaping security holes that need to be fixed (which is common on desktop platforms, but isn't discussed much when it comes to mobile platforms).
Personally, I think Google needs to take a serious look at taking over supporting OTA updates. Yes, there are currently practical obstacles like how to separate core Android from the carrier's aesthetic modifications, but I don't think that would be impossible to address. People mention the specific low-level tuning done by carriers and their manufacturer partners as a major issue. This is something that Google should clamp down on now that they have gained significant market share. They should ensure that Android manufacturer pass all certification tests and don't fool around with anything that Google can't support themselves (besides trivial aesthetic concerns). Now is also the time to start adopting the Fuck off! strategy for dealing with manufacturers who want to use Android but don't want to obey the rules. Google now has clout. Before anyone says Google would end up looking like Apple, to that I respond that they should ensure the industry has some level of influence in their design decisions for Android going forward, but all OEMs going rogue with certified Android is simply not Option 2.
I left Ford because of the exploding gas tanks they put in their pintos. Customer satisfaction must count for something.
The gas tank only exploded because the woman driver was BACKING UP on the interstate!
antipaucity
Ditto here on the motorola milestone, which moto kindly locked so I can't upgrade the base OS myself as it has a hash check (unlike the Droid).
Are there any 3rd-party updates for your MyTouch (HTC Magic elsewhere)?
Umm, I left Verizon before Google had Android. They sucked then and I've seen no reason to give them another try. I'm quite happy with T-Mobile.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
fascinating, how much is android open.
there is new version very close, but nobody knows what the new features will be, or even what version number it will have.