Following tradition, Google’s mobile OS will stick with its sweet tooth with an upcoming launch named Jelly Bean. This is my next reports insiders have revealed it will following Ice Cream Sandwich, and more importantly than its name is that fact that some of the major changes that were supposed to hit with Ice Cream Sandwich might actually show up in Jelly Bean instead.
Of course, what those major changes are remains to be seen. Google has kept the lid tight on Ice Cream Sandwich, officially announcing the OS upgrade back in May at its Google I/O conference, and failing to say little else about it. The update is supposed to bridge the gap between Android handsets and tablets, fighting off some of that persisting fragmentation talk Google’s brand can’t seem to escape. Since then, Google’s Eric Schmidt revealed Ice Cream Sandwich would launch this fall, either in October or November. It’s unknown whether hardware will launch simultaneously, although there has been talk that the Samsung Nexus Prime will boast the Android upgrade.
Google’s been so tight-lipped about ICS that the only major change associated with it thus far is its unification aspirations–and now we have to wonder if all that is being pushed back to Jelly Bean. If not, we’re left considering what those possible “game-changers” were that won’t make the ICS cut. Hopefully it’s a matter of weeks before there’s a better idea about where the Android ecosystem is heading.
