14 DAY TRIAL // While talk about Google's upcoming update to Android, Ice Cream Sandwich, have been around for several months now, it was at the Google I/O conference that the company supplied the first official details.
This was the first time Google has talked straight about Ice Cream Sandwich, the next major Android release. Google says it's coming in time for the holiday season and it will be one of the most important releases to date.
Ice Cream Sandwich will focus on re-merging all of the Android branches, the main phone branch, currently Android 2.3 Gingerbread, the tablet branch Android 3.0 Honeycomb and the newly launched Android 3.1 as well as the custom branch for Google TV.
The upcoming release will feature all of the UI enhancements from Honeycomb and will likely include new features not yet announced. From Ice Cream Sandwich forward, Google will have one Android version for all devices, phones, tablets, TVs and anything else.
Ice Cream Sandwich will also mark the end of platform fragmentation for Android, at least as far as major manufacturers are concerned. Google got several carriers and phone makers to agree to release all Android updates soon after they become available and also to support devices for at least 18 months.
Source code by the end of the year and Honeycomb 3.1
Google says that it took a shortcut with Honeycomb since it wanted to have a tablet version of its operating system out as soon as possible. This is why the source code isn't being released for Honeycomb, since it's somewhat incompatible with smartphones.
However, the source code for Ice Cream Sandwich, which will include all of the improvements from Honeycomb, will be made available towards the end of the year.
Honeycomb also received its first big update with the release of Android 3.1. It's an incremental release, most of the standard apps have been updated, some UI tweaks have been implemented and some new features are available for developers.