The next version of Android will be code-named Jelly Bean, and after that will be Key Lime Pie.
According to an unnamed source from Techradar.com, the confectionary name is the next in Google’s growing list of sweet-sounding Android code-names. Jelly Bean has already been slated as the name for Android 5.0, though Techradar couldn’t say for certain that Key Lime Pie will be version 6.0.
The big news with Jelly Bean is that it might be coming to Motorola’s “WebTop” platform. If you don’t know what that is, perhaps you’ve heard of the Motorola Atrix phone. It allows users to dock the phone into a special laptop attachment, and the phone essentially becomes the motherboard for the laptop.
The phone-powered laptop uses a proprietary Motorola interface, which it has called WebTop, but it may opt to use the Jelly Bean interface for the future of these laptop-enabled smartphones.
We still don’t know much about Jelly Bean, also known as Android 5.0, but it may be coming out sooner than expected, even though there have been problems with the Android 4.0 rollout process.
Both the Nexus S phone and the Transformer Prime tablet issued upgrades, only to have users complain that their device started freezing or crashing uncontrollably. As a result, manufacturers have become increasingly tepid about their ICS rollout plans.
Motorola announced this week that it would not be updating most of its devices until the second quarter of 2012.
Jelly Bean might be available very shortly thereafter, completely overshadowing the Ice Cream Sandwich upgrade process. Android 5.0 has its eye on tablets as well as potentially notebook and netbook computers. Google wants to make a splash in the market where both Microsoft and Apple are capturing a lot of attention with their respective operating system updates this year.
