MWC 2011 | MWC: Android OS for tablets and smartphones may soon merge

Google intends to blur the line between smartphone and tablet by announcing at the Mobile World Conference an eventual merge between its Android OS built for smartphones and the Android OS built for tablets. The details of the process were not mentioned, but PCmag reports that the next smartphone Android release, likely to be called “Ice Cream”, will share some of Honeycomb’s fundamental designs, including its visual cues and app switcher. This suggests that new iterations of Android may slowly incorporate features from Android tablets to Android smartphones and vice versa, starting with the next Android release. The current latest version for smartphones is Gingerbread, which was released in December of last year.

For those confused about the Android naming scheme, Google codenames each major Android release after dessert items and in alphabetical order. For example, Android 2.0 was codenamed Éclair, 2.2 Froyo, 2.3 Gingerbread, and 3.0 Honeycomb.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt gave no specific dates for the release of the next Android version, which may be unsurprising as the company just showed off Honeycomb a couple of weeks ago. He did, however, point out that the company “tries to follow a rough six-month cycle with Android OS releases,” and so it could be entirely possible for tablets later this year to support the next Android release.

Source(s)