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."

Comments

Worthless without pictures

[iONiUM]

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

2.3 == 3

[Compaqt]

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:

After Solaris 2.6, Sun dropped the "2." from the number, so Solaris 7 incorporates SunOS 5.7, and the latest release SunOS 5.10 forms the core of Solaris 10.

2.3

[surgen]

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)

Re:huh?

[jac89]

Each major version of Android is named after a dessert, and in alphabetical order, so Cupcake, Donut, Eclair, Froyo, and now Gingerbread (with Honeycomb to come). When the Android team finishes the next version they celebrate by getting a big statue (in this case a gingerbread man) put on their front lawn.

Android development is moving too fast

[erroneus]

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.

Re:Android development is moving too fast

[Anonymous Coward]

How many apps actually have this compatibility problem? I mean I get that there are certain apps specifically for 1.5 and some for 2.0, but I must have downloaded and run at least 100 apps for my android phone and all of them have run just fine. And I'm running a HTC magic, which came with 1.5, never had 1.6 delivered, and I have rooted and upgraded to 2.2. It mostly runs fine btw, despite rubbish hardware with a few tweaks and compromises (no widgets), And as I said it runs everything just fine. In fact I'm sure if some HTC engineers took some time to optimise v2.2 for the device it would run great. The fact is the Android platform isn't nearly ready for mainstream consumption (no way I recommend it to non-techies) and needs a heap more development, so regular version updates should be expected for some time. With enough iterations, Android will become a very powerful and flexible portable computer OS, so bring the new versions on!

naming convention

[underqualified]

for android 69, they should call it "cream pie"

Re:And this is important because?

[DragonWriter]

I may be missing something, but what does it matter if it's 3.0, 2.3, named strawberry pie, or whatever?

I believe Google said that tablets should wait for 3.0 (not any particular codename). If Gingerbread isn't 3.0, that means that there is at least one more significant release than people expected between now and the time Google thinks Android is tablet-ready. This probably matters to some people.

newer phones

[mschoolbus]

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!