At the Google I/O event earlier this year, the search giant said that Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) would be the next major version of its Android mobile operating system.
At the Google I/O event earlier this year, the search giant said that Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) would be the next major version of its Android mobile operating system. A launch date wasn't disclosed at the time, but it was expected to surface in the fourth quarter.
Eric Schmidt, Google's former CEO and current chairman of the company's board of directors, has revealed that the release of ICS is planned for October or November. He dropped this detail during a presentation at the Dreamforce conference and said that the company is excited about the upcoming launch.
Google has said that ICS will bring together Google's tablet and phone interfaces to form a unified platform that will work across form factors. Little is known about the update, because Google's "open" platform is developed entirely behind closed doors without a public roadmap. Some heavily redacted screenshots that leaked last month provided a glimpse of a new Honeycomb-like application launcher interface running on an Android phone.
Google is rumored to be preparing a new flagship smartphone, reportedly called the Nexus Prime or Nexus 4G, to ship alongside the ICS release. The device will likely be positioned as a competitor to Apple's upcoming iPhone 5 during the holiday shopping season.
