The new version of Android, called Ice Cream Sandwich, was going to be shown at Samsung's "Google Unpacked" event on October 11. That event has been postponed, out of respect for the memory of Steve Jobs. But when it resumes, it may coincide with the release of what is being called the Nexus Prime, a new flagship smartphone for Google.
Here's a quick, tasty look at Android's previous versions which were named after desserts.
April, 2009: Cupcake (Android 1.5)
Cupcake was the first major update to Google's open-source operating system, which until then was just known as "Android." (The 1.1 update, which came in between the two, should perhaps have been known as "Banana Split," but was too minor to get its own name.) It added animated transitions for switching between different screens, as well as widgets, which are things like weather displays that you can put on your home screen.
September, 2009: Donut (Android 1.6)
Donut improved Android's search features, speeding up searches and letting you search your contacts, web bookmarks and web browsing history. It also added a text-to-speech feature that could read text aloud to you, as well as support for turn-by-turn navigation in Google Maps.
October, 2009: Eclair (Android 2.0)
Eclair added a ton of incremental, behind-the-scenes improvements to apps like the keyboard and web browser, as well as an updated user interface. The biggest new feature for Android smartphone owners was the support for animated, interactive "Live Wallpapers," like virtual pets or pools of water with ripples that formed where you touched them. Eclair also added support for multitouch screens, allowing gestures like pinch-to-zoom on smartphone handsets that supported it.
May, 2010: Froyo (Android 2.2)
Froyo, or "Frozen Yogurt," added support for Adobe Flash on the web, as well as building Chrome's V8 engine into the web browser for faster performance on interactive websites. The new and improved Android Market allowed you to update more than one app at a time, as well as set certain apps to automatically update. There were also numerous app performance enhancements, including the ability to install apps to a microSD card instead of the phone's internal memory.
December, 2010: Gingerbread (Android 2.3)
Gingerbread added support for NFC, or Near Field Communication chips, which allow phones like the Nexus S to use Google Wallet for payments and coupon storage. It also improved its support for "native code", allowing for faster games with high-performance graphics, and featured a new, simpler user interface.
February, 2011: Honeycomb (Android 3.0)
Honeycomb was the first version of Android designed just for tablets. It featured an entirely redone user interface made for large screens, which allowed "Fragments," or sidebars, to be displayed to the side of an app's main view. An "Action Bar" and a "System Bar," at the top and bottom of the screen, replaced Android's hardware buttons and let you access app menus and notifications.
October, 2011: Ice Cream Sandwich?
The Android Developer Channel on YouTube was counting down the days until the Google / Samsung presentation. When it resumes, we may have a better idea of when a new dessert sculpture will be coming to the Google campus.
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