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Google may be doing away with its dessert naming scheme after a long, delicious run.
The company announced on Thursday the next version of its mobile operating system will be called Android 10. It’s currently in public beta and expected to roll out in the next couple of months.
Google has long named its Android software after treats. After its alpha and beta versions, it launched Android Cupcake, Donut, Eclair, Froyo, Gingerbread, Honeycomb, Ice Cream Sandwich, Jellybean, KitKat, Lollipop, Marshmallow, Nougat, Oreo and Pie.
Perhaps the developers struggled with finding a dessert that starts with Q. Some people on Twitter suggested options such as Android “Quarter of a Pound Cake.”
But in a blog post on Thursday, Google explained some desserts aren’t inclusive of its international community. In many languages, the names translate to words with different letters that don’t fit with its alphabetical order sequence.
A spokesperson for Google said 10 refers to Android Q’s version number, saying it “felt like the right time to make this change.”
“It’s even harder for new Android users, who are unfamiliar with the naming convention, to understand if their phone is running the latest version,”
Google’s VP of product management Sameer Samat wrote in the blog post.
Android is currently running on 2.5 billion active devices, Samat said. That includes not only Google Pixel phones, but Samsung, Nokia and many other brands.
Android will also receive a new logo
Alongside the new name is an updated logo for Android, one that Aude Gandon, global brand director for Android, says has a “more modern” wordmark. Importantly, it will always include the little green robot. “The robot is what makes Android special. It makes it human, fun, and approachable,” Gandon says.
Going with a new naming scheme for the 10th version of Android makes a bit of sense; it’s a landmark release. Still, given how difficult it is to put a common dessert to the letter Q, I noted to Google’s Sameer Samat, VP of product management for Android, that it was awfully convenient that Google picked this release to switch up the naming scheme.
“We’re going to deal with that skepticism,” he says. Google’s actual reason for switching the naming, he says, isn’t that Q is hard, but rather that desserts aren’t very inclusive. “We have some good names, but in each and every case they leave a part of the world out,” he argues. Android is a global brand, used by more people in India and Brazil than in the US, so going with an English word for the dessert leaves some regions out.
Sources: edition.cnn.com
theverge.com
