Newsletter
When the Android press first started discussing future OS versions beyond Android OS 2.2, or Froyo, they got stuck on the numbers. First Gingerbread was going to be formally titled Android 3.0. Then it was going to be Android 2.3 and Honeycomb was going to be 3.0, or was the latter going to be three point something else? Nobody knew, Google wasn’t saying, and writers came up with circumlocutions such as “which we believe will be known as Android OS 2.5” and similar bet-hedging.
Thank goodness someone from tight-lipped Google slipped and referred to Gingerbread as Android 2.3 on a publicly viewable Android bug list. Everyone fell into line with 2.3 thereafter. Honeycomb then was slotted in as Android 3.0, since it was supposed to be optimized for tablets.
Until a couple of weeks ago when the word went out that supposedly Honeycomb was Android 2.4. So for a few days all of us began referring to the next version of Google’s Android operating system as “Honeycomb (Android OS 2.4)” as if nobody had every used that rounded three appellation. Then we all woke up from our mass hallucination and went back to calling Honeycomb 3.0 as if that 2.4 business was a bad night drinking we all wanted to forget.
Well, guess what? The 2.4 monicker is back in the comb.
As I write this Wednesday night (12/29), three different sites have claimed their site logs show visitors using Android OS 2.4 and none of them trying out anything with a 3.0 in it. I suppose the fun-loving engineers at Google could be changing the OS revision with every build just to drive analytics-checkers crazy, but I thought I’d best pass this on to you. So, to summarize:
- Pocket Now reports one OS 2.4 visitor
- Android Police reports 15 Android OS 2.4 visitors in the last 30 days, and zero 3.0
- Android and Me, which incidentally is the site that started the 2.4 rumors in the first place, repeated them again tonight in an unrelated article about Motorola’s upcoming XOOM tablet. Yes, site logs pointed to Android OS 2.4 visitors.
Maybe all the CES news is just making everyone jumpy, including those OS version numbers. Rest assured, we’ll be sharing any Android news with you as we hear it.