Google Android update named Ice Cream or Ice Cream Sandwich? The debate is on
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The post-Gingerbread version of Google’s Android operating system for smart phones will either be called Ice Cream, Ice Cream Sandwich, or possibly some different dessert name beginning with the letter i.
And while Google has made no official announcements as to what treat its Android 2.4 OS will be called, Android fans and bloggers are already speculating and debating the topic.
According to ArsTechnica, the Ice Cream rumors got started with the Pocket-lint blog, which declared that its multiple unnamed sources divulged that Android 2.4 will be called Ice Cream and unveiled in May at the Google I/O conference in San Francisco.
A day later, TechCrunch then said, no, Android 2.4 won’t be called Ice Cream, but in fact Ice Cream Sandwich. And TechCrunch didn’t cite an anonymous source, but rather Google’s Andy Rubin, who heads up Android.
‘It was only said in passing, but Rubin doesn’t seem the sort to just rejigger the names of his OS releases on the fly. And besides, it makes perfect sense,’ wrote TechCrunch’s Jason Kincaid, who jokingly said the information ‘may be the biggest scoop of my career [get it, scoop?].’
The reason Ice Cream Sandwich makes more sense than Ice Cream, Kincaid wrote, was because Google makes a sculpture of each dessert to place on its Googleplex lawn to celebrate the release of a new version of Android and and an Ice Cream sculpture would look too much like the sculpture for Froyo (Android version 2.2, named for Frozen Yogurt). An Ice Cream Sandwich, however, would be easier to differentiate, he wrote.
ArsTechnica suggested either would make for a more interesting sculpture than an Icebox Cake.
One thing everyone seems to agree on is that the next build of Android will be named after something tasty and something beginning with the letter I, since its previous Android releases have been given dessert names in alphabetical order -- Donut, Eclair, Froyo, Gingerbread and Honeycomb (the tablet-specific Android OS that has yet to be officially released).
Google officials were unavailable for comment on the debate on Friday morning.
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-- Nathan Olivarez-Giles