With Microsoft’s developer conference in the history books, the tech industry is turning its attention to the next major conference: Google I/O. The search giant’s annual two-day gathering gets started on May 28 in San Francisco and as it has done in years past, one of the things we can expect to see is the next version of Android.
Following up on Android L, or Lollipop, Android M will be the next major mobile OS release from Google. The company hasn’t yet come right out and said as much but the “Android M” name was mentioned in a description for one of the event’s sessions (it has since been removed).
Google’s naming convention for Android is pretty simple; it started at the beginning of the alphabet with Alpha with each new release name staring with the subsequent letter in the alphabet. Since Cupcake, Android releases took on a confectionary-theme codename, a trend that has stuck ever since.
The description for the session – Android at Work – doesn’t provide too much of a hint as to what the new OS will bring. An obvious guess would be a heavier enterprise push, something that developers could no doubt help out with. Other sessions mentioned “interruptions” and “voice access,” clues that Android M may refine notifications and expand voice control capabilities, respectively.
Android Lollipop was unveiled at last year’s I/O conference and hit general availability on November 3. According to the Android developer dashboard, Lollipop 5.0 and 5.1 have a combined installation base of just 9.7 percent. Android 4.4 KitKat continues to be the most widely used version as it’s installed on 39.8 percent of Android devices
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