SAN FRANCISCO: Google said it is packing the best of its Honeycomb tablet computer software into a new "Ice Cream Sandwich" version of Android for mobile devices.
The California-based Internet titan planned to release Ice Cream Sandwich by the end of the year and promised that it is being designed to run smartphones, tablets, and any other Android gadgets.
"Our top priority for Ice Cream Sandwich will be one operating system that runs everywhere," Android engineering team chief Mike Claron said at a Google developers conference in San Francisco.
The OS is expected to be a combo of Honeycomb (Android 3.0) and Gingerbread. Reports suggest that it will be Android version 3.1 and is likely to be a combination of smartphone and tablet OS. Earlier this year, Google unveiled its latest version of OS Honeycomb especially designed to run on tablet devices.
Speculations are rife that the new version, apart from packing features from Honeycomb 3.0, will also offer support for Google TV.
There are also strong speculations that that Ice Cream Sandwich will be officially announced at the forthcoming Google I/O conference scheduled for this month. Both Ice Cream and Ice Cream Sandwich have been doing the rounds for some time, so it is no massive reveal that one of them would become the next Android OS, but it is nice to see the name muttered by someone inside Google.
Ice Cream, we all scream
Unfortunately the employee doesn’t also give the OS number, so there’s still speculation as to whether this will be Android 3.1, or even Android 4.0. Ice Cream Sandwich is said to be a mishmash of both Honeycomb and Gingerbread, which should close the gap between the mobile phone OS and Android 3.0, which is an OS built solely for tablets. The Google I/O conference is set to begin in just six days – according to the rather annoying ball-bouncing countdown on Google’s website.
The California-based Internet titan planned to release Ice Cream Sandwich by the end of the year and promised that it is being designed to run smartphones, tablets, and any other Android gadgets.
"Our top priority for Ice Cream Sandwich will be one operating system that runs everywhere," Android engineering team chief Mike Claron said at a Google developers conference in San Francisco.
Ice Cream Sandwich, this is what Google’s next Android OS upgrade will be called. The name which has been doing rounds since past several months has reportedly got confirmed by a Google engineer. The name slip was made by Romain Guy on a support forum for Google Mobile, where he noted that an update to SweepGradient would be made in Ice Cream Sandwich. Responding to a query in the Android project hub, Guy answered, "a bug fix will be provided in ice cream sandwich." Putting the 'i' in the IceCream
The OS is expected to be a combo of Honeycomb (Android 3.0) and Gingerbread. Reports suggest that it will be Android version 3.1 and is likely to be a combination of smartphone and tablet OS. Earlier this year, Google unveiled its latest version of OS Honeycomb especially designed to run on tablet devices.
Speculations are rife that the new version, apart from packing features from Honeycomb 3.0, will also offer support for Google TV.
There are also strong speculations that that Ice Cream Sandwich will be officially announced at the forthcoming Google I/O conference scheduled for this month. Both Ice Cream and Ice Cream Sandwich have been doing the rounds for some time, so it is no massive reveal that one of them would become the next Android OS, but it is nice to see the name muttered by someone inside Google.
Ice Cream, we all scream
Unfortunately the employee doesn’t also give the OS number, so there’s still speculation as to whether this will be Android 3.1, or even Android 4.0. Ice Cream Sandwich is said to be a mishmash of both Honeycomb and Gingerbread, which should close the gap between the mobile phone OS and Android 3.0, which is an OS built solely for tablets. The Google I/O conference is set to begin in just six days – according to the rather annoying ball-bouncing countdown on Google’s website.
