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Google's Gingerbread Man Has Arrived 92

Posted by CmdrTaco from the not-my-gumdrop-buttons dept.
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."
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Google's Gingerbread Man Has Arrived More

Google's Gingerbread Man Has Arrived

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  • ...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.

    • I wonder if there will be an changes in response to the Oracle Java suit. If I understand correctly, it was a matter of the completeness of the Java support. Perhaps that could mean Android would be able to run apps that weren't intended for the phones?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

        I wonder if there will be an changes in response to the Oracle Java suit. If I understand correctly, it was a matter of the completeness of the Java support. Perhaps that could mean Android would be able to run apps that weren't intended for the phones?

        Well, they could make Dalvik be J2SE compatible, which would come under the free patent license for J2SE only.

        Sun never licensed J2ME under a free patent license for a very good reason - J2ME is/was quite lucrative, being on tons of "dumbphones" and "featurep

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by SQLGuru ( 980662 )

          Or, they could port it to Go. Then they'd own the language, too. Just one more snub to Oracle (see other article about Oracle's brain drain).

    • Re:I can't wait for the Apple Pie release... (Score:4, Funny)

      by Archangel Michael ( 180766 ) on Tuesday October 26, 2010 @10:55AM (#34024876) Journal

      Pie Version will be just a maintenance release ... 3.14

  • OK, +5 freaking weird/confusing headline... funny, tho

    • Re:huh? (Score:5, Informative)

      by jac89 ( 979421 ) on Tuesday October 26, 2010 @10:26AM (#34024522)
      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.

      • Was there an 'A' or 'B'?

        Hmm... What will 'I' be?

        • Ice Cream

        • Hmm... What will 'I' be?

          After Gingerbread, the next two have already been announced: Honeycomb and Ice Cream.

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by teh31337one ( 1590023 )
          Alpha, Beta and Ice Cream [forbes.com]

        • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

          by Drathus ( 152223 )

          A and B pre-date Google's purchase of Android, Inc.

          A was Android
          B was Bender (Futurama)

          Cupcake was the first release under Google which started the naming after treats instead of robots.

          • That's not true - Google released both 1.0 and 1.1 for the G1 before 1.5 (Cupcake) was released. Both were released more than 3 years after the Android acquisition in 2005.

            There were no public releases from Android, Inc. And I can't find any reference to a release named "Bender", which would almost certainly run into trademark issues.

            • Re: (Score:1)

              by Drathus ( 152223 )

              Late reply, but just to clarify as I might not have been clear with my wording.

              The A and B were not releases, but code-names used internally.

              The C-Cupcake release was the first Google release which had the treat themed codename.

              So the 1.0 and 1.1 releases were outliers in this trend of codenames.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Xest ( 935314 )

        "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."

        This has to rank up there with burning effigys on a large fire (Guy Fawkes / Bonfire night in the UK) as weird celebrations from the West that must make us look fucking insane to the rest of the world.

        Yet here in the West we often have the cheek to claim other culture's celebrations are strange!

  • Worthless without pictures (Score:5, Informative)

    by iONiUM ( 530420 ) on Tuesday October 26, 2010 @10:22AM (#34024468) Journal

    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 [pcr-online.biz]

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Scyth3 ( 988321 )
      Better picture...showing its awesome gumdrop buttons: http://www.gearlog.com/2010/10/android_gingerbread_gets_its_o.php [gearlog.com]

      • Re: (Score:1, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Not the gumdrop buttons!

    • Mea culpa (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Daetrin ( 576516 )
      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 associate
    • Because it would have been relevant and this is /.
  • i dont care what number they call it, it sounds delicious mmmmm gingerbread

  • 2.3 == 3 (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Compaqt ( 1758360 ) on Tuesday October 26, 2010 @10:25AM (#34024494) Homepage

    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.

    • Re: (Score:1, Redundant)

      by KlaymenDK ( 713149 )

      New Math never was more brilliantly explained than by Tom Lehrer:
      http://curvebank.calstatela.edu/newmath/newmath.htm [calstatela.edu]

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Dionysus ( 12737 )

      It's the new math, previously put forth by Sun when they started calling Java 1.2 "Java 2".

      They got the idea from GNU and Emacs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emacs

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by hansamurai ( 907719 )

      Winamp skipped version 4 because they said what became version 5 was the best of both versions 2 and 3 (2+3=5).

      And of course the general disconnect between Java versions of what the consumer sees and what the developer works with. Java 1.5 to the developer, Java 5 to the end user, etc.

    • It's the new math, previously put forth by Sun when they started calling Java 1.2 "Java 2".

      I can't wait to see what happens when they get past 1.9 (aka Java 9?)

      Will it be 2.0? Can't call it Java 2.

      Maybe it will be 1.10? Isn't 1.10 == 1.1? Taken.

      They'll probably just start jumping on the meaningless-pair-of-letters bandwagon that everyone else has been getting on and off of over the years...MX, CS, XP, ME, CE, NT, FX, DX, MP, XL, ...

      "Just released, the latest and greatest, J2EE JDK DD!"
      (DD, for double-digit, lol)

  • And this is important because? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by whizbang77045 ( 1342005 ) on Tuesday October 26, 2010 @10:25AM (#34024504)
    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?

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Errol backfiring ( 1280012 )

      By approximately 0.7

      Seriously though, companies are sometimes fooled by the looks of the numbers. 3.0 sounds like a whole new shiny redesign, while 2.3 does not.

    • Re:And this is important because? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by DragonWriter ( 970822 ) on Tuesday October 26, 2010 @10:54AM (#34024864)

      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.

    • because they think it has importance. I've had it explained to me in many ways. The user thinks 1.0 is done, it lets people know which version to download (regardless of if your product has more then one version at any time). It's basically one of those bullshit things which suffers from parkingson's law of triviality.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by shish ( 588640 )

      How does this impact our quality of life?

      When a new major version comes out, phone companies use it as an excuse to stop supporting the old one, and you have to buy new hardware to get new software (or use a third party rom, which disproves claims of "the old hardware can't handle it"...)

  • 2.3 (Score:5, Insightful)

    by surgen ( 1145449 ) on Tuesday October 26, 2010 @10:26AM (#34024512)

    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)

  • got gingerbread ? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Thud457 ( 234763 ) on Tuesday October 26, 2010 @10:29AM (#34024544) Homepage Journal
    Achievement unlocked?

  • Android development is moving too fast (Score:5, Insightful)

    by erroneus ( 253617 ) on Tuesday October 26, 2010 @10:34AM (#34024602) Homepage

    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 (Score:4, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 26, 2010 @11:05AM (#34025030)

      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!

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by adolf ( 21054 )

        The fact is the Android platform isn't nearly ready for mainstream consumption (no way I recommend it to non-techies)

        Which, you know, is funny. I used to think the same thing.

        And then, I started asking non-techie folks about how they like their shiny new Droid. They all seemed to like it just fine as a widget that makes phone calls, does text messages, browses Teh Intarwebs, and plays a cheesy game, and were satisfied with their limited use.

      • The market only shows you apps that should work on your device. Therefor, EVERY app you download should work properly. It is of course somewhat dependent on the dev. coding properly [no insult intended, please don't take one] and also on the hardware manufacturer not mucking around with apis.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Microlith ( 54737 )

      I know, just like how Linux development started moving so fast there were four version in a single year. Everyone gave up and ran away, now all we have are Windows and MacOS X!

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by shugah ( 881805 )
      The minimum CPU speed is now apparently 1Ghz. That means most of the top end phones available today will "minimally" run gingerbread (although there is a big difference in benchmark performance between the 1GHz Snapdragon based Androids and the 1GHz Hummingbird based Androids).

      This would seem to indicate that Gingerbread really is targeted to tablets.

      So - is Honeycomb going to require a 2GHz CPU? Will there be a version targeted to smartphones (lower CPU specs)? For most people, a mobile phone has

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Drathus ( 152223 )

        The response from Rubin about the rumored requirements for Gingerbread was, "Don't believe everything you hear."

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by xonicx ( 1009245 )
      How can you install a new released version of android on old phone? Android uses different kernel(read device drivers) for each release.

      Cupcake: 2.6.27
      Donut: 2.6.29
      éclair: 2.6.31
      Froyo:2.6.32

      Google does not write device drivers or port kernel. Google get involved only in reference platform which is required to develop android user space. For rest of devices, kernel porting is mostly driven by OEM(for a particular hardware) and it is done by hardware partners. What is the incentive for OEM

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by shugah ( 881805 )
        The OEMs are not the only source of Android hardware ports. There is a very active community of users building images for a wide variety of phone. The third party / community builds are usually available long before the official OEM supported upgrades because they don't have to worry about supporting "Sense" or "Motoblurr" or what have you.

        My phone came with Android 2.1, but my carrier (Rogers) disabled Google Navigation so that they could sell their own navigation app. So I rooted the phone and re-f

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tknd ( 979052 )

      The division isn't because older android versions aren't compatible in newer versions, the division is because developers want to use features of newer SDKs that are not available in the older ones. There are many big and important changes from 1.5 to 1.6 and 1.6 to 2.0. But many devs started around 1.5 or 1.6 and so they already have a user base or they started with 2.0, had success, and wanted to capture more market by making compatible 1.5 or 1.6 versions.

      So while you can use the 1.5 version, it probab

  • naming convention (Score:5, Funny)

    by underqualified ( 1318035 ) on Tuesday October 26, 2010 @10:44AM (#34024714)
    for android 69, they should call it "cream pie"
  • Screw celebrations, I want to know what's new in the API...

  • newer phones (Score:4, Interesting)

    by mschoolbus ( 627182 ) <{travisriley} {at} {gmail.com}> on Tuesday October 26, 2010 @01:17PM (#34026848)
    It's good to see cheaper android phones coming out soon [engadget.com].

    I am still waiting to upgrade from my g1 to the g2, if they can ever perma-root that thing!

  • 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.

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