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Google's new Android 15 statue will bring back memories

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By Alan Friedman

Published: Sep 04, 2024, 10:26 PM

Remember the good old days when Google used to make a big deal about introducing the latest statue related to the dessert name of the most recent Android build? Ah, those were fun days when statutes representing KitKat, Jelly Bean, Ice Cream Sandwich, and Lollipop dotted the Googleplex in Mountain View. The dessert names were handed out in alphabetical order starting with Android Cupcake 1.5 in April 2009.

With Android 10 and Android 11 in 2019 and 2020 respectively, Google stopped with the dessert names and Android 9's Pie appeared to be the end of the era in 2018. What caused Google to stop? Kaori Miyake, Google's communications manager for Android, said at the time, "We heard feedback over the years from users that the names weren’t always intuitively understandable by everyone in the global community."

But as far as I could tell back in the day, Android users loved the dessert names especially KitKat since it always brought to mind the delicious crunchy chocolate snack bar. And Android 12 brought back the Android sweet tooth with Snow Cone. Android 13 had the dessert name of Tiramisu and Android 14 was called Upside Down Cake. With Android 15 ready to rollout soon, Google unveiled a new statue today for the Android 15 dessert name which is Vanilla Ice Cream.

The new Anderoid 15 Vanilla Ice Cream statue arrives at Mountain View. | Image credit-9to5Google

The statue shows the green Android bugdroid sitting on a bench enjoying a vanilla ice cream cone. That might mean that we can rule out Waffle Cone being used as the dessert name for next year's Android W. Coming up with the dessert names for Android 17, Android 18, and Android 19 starting in 2026 will require the top minds at Mountain View to do some deep thinking since the desserts will need to start with the letters "X," "Y," and "Z." Perhaos this will require the use of the most widely used two letters of 2024-AI.

Just hearing some of the dessert names from the early days of Android brings back plenty of memories, Who could forget Android 2.0-2.1 Eclair which powered the first true iPhone challenger, the Motorola DROID. There was Android Froyo (2.2-2.2.3), Gingerbread (2.3-2.3.7) and many more.

While the Pixel 9 series has been officially released, the phones are coming out of the box with last year's Android 14 pre-installed. Those with the Pixel 6, Pixel 6 Pro, and later can install the Android 15 Beta on their devices which I did on my Pixel 6 Pro. The stable version of Android 15 might not arrive until next month.

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Alan, an ardent smartphone enthusiast and a veteran writer at PhoneArena since 2009, has witnessed and chronicled the transformative years of mobile technology. Owning iconic phones from the original iPhone to the iPhone 15 Pro Max, he has seen smartphones evolve into a global phenomenon. Beyond smartphones, Alan has covered the emergence of tablets, smartwatches, and smart speakers.

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