Google has revealed that around the world some 100m Android smartphones have been activated so far in 2011. The company also revealed the next release of Android 3.1, named Ice Cream Sandwich.
Android product manager Hugo Barra told the 5,000-strong annual I/O Conference that Android is enjoying strong momentum.
“There are now more 310 Android devices available in 112 countries – talk about choice,” Barra said.
“The best way to measure this momentum is velocity. Last year, we were activating 100,000 Android devices a day, by August this was doubled to 200,000, it reached 300,000 in December and today 400,000 Android devices are being activated daily.”
Barra said there are now 200,000 available apps in the Android ecosystem.
“The world’s most engaging useful and entertaining mobile apps are running on Android.
“It took our ecosystems two years to see the first 1bn downloads, and it took five further months to get to the second billion. Today, there is a total of over 4.5bn app installs on Android devices,”
Android 3.1 Ice Cream Sandwich
Taking the wraps off the next version of Android, product manager Mike Clarin displayed a new task manager that shuts down apps and manages resources without asking users to quit, as well as a scrolling app widget that can be expanded and reduced in size.
Clarin confirmed the new OS Android 3.1 will be coming to Google TV and that Google TV users will also be able to access the Android Market.
“All developers will be able to create apps for Google TV using the same SDK and these apps will automatically be updated over the air.”
Hardware partners on the Google TV front include Sony, Visio, Samsung and Logitech.
“High quality apps are the life’s blood of Android,” Clarin said.
“Our vision is to create one OS everywhere, a state-of-the-art user interface with richer widgets and advanced apps,” he said.
