Google IO 2015 event will start today and by the look of things, we may see the next Android version announced. At the moment, Android KitKat is the most popular Android version controlling 39.8% market share.
Read: KitKat Is Still The Most Popular with Lollipop Seeing Significant Growth
Android Lollipop is also gaining popularity given the number of new Smartphones shipping with this version out of the box. For Google, this is good news and the company is ready to unveil the next iteration, Android M. We will be seeing Android M later this year as this has been confirmed by Google software engineer.
The engineer we are talking about here is Hiroshi Lockheimer, who is quoted saying “this year we’ll launch M”. He said this in an interview with Fast Company. This is the strongest confirmation yet and let’s hope we get it before IFA 2015 or somewhere around there as that’s when we should start seeing some new Smartphones unveiled.
According to Lockheimer, Android M will be around for a year before the next version, Android N, is announced. Lockheimer revealed that Google is adopting “a yearly cadence of big releases, so, for instance, one year we release J, the next year we release K, and then the year after that L, and then this year we’ll launch M, and so you can predict what will happen next year.”
He went ahead to say that Google will always find ways of improving Android even with the updates coming yearly. “The trick is not to think about them in isolation… It’s really about thinking about these different screens, if you will, holistically. How do they work with each other? A watch, and a phone, and a TV, and a car, and a tablet, how can they coordinate, and how can they actually enrich our lives, and make things that were harder before more useful?”
Google IO is happening later today and here is the schedule if you are interested, Google IO Schedule.