Android 2.4 Loose @ MWC; It's Still Gingerbread!

The recent Mobile World Congress announcements from HTC have brought us the Facebook integrated ChaCha(which looks like HTC’s version of a Blackberry) and the Salsa, each with dedicated Facebook buttons to further your addiction. Also announced was the HTC Flyer Tablet which sports a Stylus, another great addition to the HTC lineup. But the Android community was left wondering…what is Android 2.4?

According to the official press release for the ChaCha and Salsa, HTC clearly states that both Android smartphones will run Android 2.4 OS, with all other reports placing this new OS on their Flyer Tablet as well. So what is Android 2.4. According to HTC, it’s just an optimized update to the current Android 2.3 Gingerbread OS, think of it as Gingerbread+.

HTC says that they have decided to hold off a bit longer on Android 3.0 Honeycomb because of spending so much time integrating its new Sense UI with Gingerbread, noting that the major difference between the two Gingerbreads will be the ability of 2.4 to run Honeycomb’s dual-core apps on single-core devices. HTC does plan on allowing the jump from OS 2.4 to 3.0 Honeycomb for the Flyer sometime after its initial release. This new optimized version of Gingerbread is also said to start hitting other devices/tablets sometime in April.

So that answers that question. Android 2.4 is still Gingerbread, just better tasting. What do you think about the release of Android 2.4 on HTC’s new Android devices. How about the devices themselves? Any takers?