Ice Cream Sandwich to launch next week
The next version of Google's mobile operating system is expected to be released at the Samsung Unpacked event, according to a placeholder on an official developers channel.
Google is expected to serve up Ice Cream Sandwich--the newest version of Android--on Tuesday at the Samsung Unpacked event in San Diego.
That revelation comes courtesy of the official Android Developers YouTube channel, which earlier today posted a placeholder video titled "Android ICS launch." The site now says, "This live event is no longer available. Sorry about that." Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt said last month that the next flavor of the company's mobile operating system would debut sometime in October or November.
Google representatives did not respond to a request for comment.
Samsung is also expected to use the event to unveil a new Android phone, perhaps the Nexus Prime, which would likely be the first Ice Cream Sandwich phone. Samsung has posted a teaser video that includes the words "Something big is coming"--perhaps an indication of the phone's screen size.
Or that was the case. Some hours after this story was published, Samsung and Google announced that they would be postponing a product launch--presumably of that Nexus phone--that had been scheduled for next week's Samsung Unpacked event. The companies did not give a reason for the change.
Ice Cream Sandwich is Google's first attempt to create one single unified mobile OS, taking Honeycomb features and interfaces and adapting them to run across both smartphones and tablets. ICS developers will get new open-source APIs and a framework that will help them optimize their apps to run on a variety of different Android phones and tablets.
Updated at 5:07 p.m. to reflect the removal of the event on the Android Developers YouTube channel.
Updated again October 7 at 7:22 a.m. with the news that Samsung and Google have postponed the product launch that had been expected for next week.