Well, the summer maybe coming to a close for 2011, but that doesn’t mean it’s too late for a delicious Ice Cream Sandwich. According to Rohan Shravan, CEO of Notion Ink, the company’s "Adam" tablet, scheduled for release in early November, will run Android’s upcoming OS which, according to him, will be released in late October.
The consensus seems to be, however, that Mr Shravan’s past estimations have been indifferent to say the least, so this news cannot necessarily be taken as Gospel. Having said that, the quoted October/November release date does corroborate an earlier interview with Eric Schmidt himself.
Initially, it was thought that the new Android release was going to land in the final weeks of the year, but either progress has been better than previously expected, or Google has decided to coincide with the much-delayed release of the iPhone 5 and iOS 5 collaboration. It’s not exactly a new tactic of rival companies to try and rain on each other’s parades as it were, and a wave of Android adverts in the midst of the Apple release series doesn’t seem beyond the realms of possibility.
As has been expressed many times by various key figures over at the Big G, Android dominates the market with over half of all smartphone using it. Half a million Android phones are activated daily, and Google will be looking to further emphasize its dominance in the mobile OS field.
Ice Cream Sandwich, the pseudonym for Google’s forthcoming mobile OS, will take on a different approach to previous Android versions, combining elements of Honeycomb and Gingerbread together in one ‘best of both worlds’ operating system. As well as the positive connotations this has for consumers, it will also make development a whole lot easier as currently, the tablet and smartphone versions of Android have different code bases which will, from Ice Cream Sandwich onwards, be mutually intelligible.
It will be interesting to see how – numbers aside momentarily – Ice Cream Sandwich compares with iOS 5. Both Google and Apple have spent a considerable amount of time talking up their respective mobile operating systems, and it will be interesting to see how the features stack up against each other.
Do you think Android will continue its unprecedented success, or do you think that there’s potential for Apple seriously test Google’s resolve?
(Source NotionInk)
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