Club sandwich
It's probably not a great sign when you're better known for leaking details of the next version of Android than for your own product, but we're grateful to the founder of Notion Ink nonetheless for his uninhibited blogging.
Rohan Shravan seems to have faced many challenges, not least ill health, in getting his Adam tablet - which we first wrote about over a year ago - off the ground. In a recent blog post he insisted things were back on course, and in so doing said "we all know about the impending launch of ICS (IceCream Sandwich) in October." Well we do now Rohan. Elsewhere he specified late October for the next major version of Android.
It's worth a recap of the rumour mill surrounding ICS. The general assumption is that it will be called Android 4.0, and the main reason for moving up a whole number - as opposed to the endless decimal-point increments we've had inflicted on us this year - is that ICS will bring the tablet version (Honeycomb) and the smartphone versions (of which Gingerbread is the most recent) together in one unifying version of the platform.
This isn't the first time October has been suggested as the release date, with BGR being especially proactive on the rumour-mongering front, but it is the first time we're aware of that a Google partner has gone on the record with a date estimation.
The lead device for ICS is generally thought to be called the Nexus Prime, and will once more be made by Samsung, which seems a bit harsh on those OEMs yet to get any Google special treatment, such as LG and Sony Ericsson.
Furthermore the word on the street is that TI is due some Google loving, and that the OMAP 4460 will be the SoC. This will mark yet another chip partner for Samsung which, let's not forget, also makes its own. With NVIDIA's Tegra 2 already extensively used in Samsung mobile devices, and even Qualcomm's Snapdragon apparently on the menu, you have to wonder what Samsung's strategy is for its own Exynos chip.
The Notion Ink Adam is a Tegra device, and Shravan doesn't reckon he'll be able to update it with ICS until November. This is consistent with Google's strategy of giving lead partners a head start over the rest of the Android ecosystem. Of course everyone is wondering if, assuming Google completes its acquisition of Motorola, it will be exclusively Moto to get this competitive advantage in future.
