It’s almost a year since Google unveiled Android L at last year’s I/O. It is about six months since the final build in the form of Android 5.0 became available to consumers. While most of us didn’t expect Google to move so fast and introduce a sequel to Lollipop, it looks like the company will be doing exactly that at I/O this year and maintaining its tradition of showcasing a new Android flavour at its annual developer conference.
Leaked via an appearance on the official I/O 15 schedule yesterday that was spotted by the tech press shortly before it was taken down, Android M is on the way. There are no further details at this point about what the standout features of Android M will be but it is likely that it will build on the ground covered by Lollipop so far. Google has been busy patching Android 5 with the release of successive updates including last week’s seeding of Android 5.1.1 meant to address the various bugs that have plagued Android Lollipop from the get go.
With Android Wear, Android TV and Android Auto being key in last year’s keynote at I/O and a new design language for Android in the form of Material Design already out, we expect Android M to be the version that cements the journey to unify Android across all devices and offer a unified device besides a few new features here and there. As can be seen in the above screen grab, Android M is expected to focus on Android for Work as well. We’ve already seen Android Auto show up thanks to the likes of Pioneer, Volkswagen and others. Android Wear hasn’t taken the market by storm like the Apple Watch but we expect it to get better as more updates come and more impressive hardware hits the market.
Android M will certainly be a point release like say 5.2.
Photo: Android Police
