Apple made waves this morning when it
announced its oft-rumored September 10 event, but Google isn’t giving up the
day’s limelight without a fight — according to a post on Sundar Pichai’s
Google+ page, more than 1 billion Android devices have been activated to date.
That’s not exactly a shock considering the sort of momentum we’ve seen in
activations over the past few months. CEO Larry Page said there were 1.5
million Android activations a day back in July and Android device activations
hit the 900 million mark earlier this year.
Even more puzzling than that is the name of the next version of
Android, which bucks the long-standing trend of generic dessert names. As it
turns out, Android 4.4 is going to be called “KitKat”and
not “Key Lime Pie” as earlier thought, though at this point there’s still no
official word on when we can expect to see the build go live. Kit Kats are of
course a popular chocolate treat made by Nestle, and at this point we’re trying
to determine how much this crazy little deal is worth, but
the promotional blitz has already begun.
UPDATE: Google
has confirmed to the BBC that the idea for the name originated
with them, and that no money is changing hands as part of the deal.
Nestle has already kicked off a bizarre cross-promotion strategy
that will bestow Nexus 7s and Google Play credits on those who find specially
branded Kit Kat candy bars emblazoned with the Android logo, à la Willy
Wonka. Yes, this is really happening. Apparently the agreement was finalized
behind closed doors at this year’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, and all
parties involved amazingly managed to keep the name under wraps (I slay me) for
six months despite the fact that Nestle has been churning out that
Android-laden packaging for 50 million candy bars.
Though the name itself is enough to get Android fans and mobile
pundits talking, Google may be looking to expand its scope with this latest
update. The newly anointed Android KitKit landing pageclaims
that it’s the company’s goal “to make an amazing Android experience available
for everybody,” which may hint at an expansion into different hardware
segments. Google already has some skin in the smartphone and tablet games
thanks to its acquisition of Motorola Mobility and hardware partnerships with
Asus and LG, but it’s possible we could see Android KitKit powering a
smartwatch — a move made partially possible by Google’s quiet acquisition of WIMM Labs last year.
Source: http://techcrunch.com
0 comments:
Post a Comment