Today Google vice president Sundar Pichai announced (via G+) the name of the next version of Android OS as KitKat (Android 4.4), through a tweet he showed the image of an Android Kitkat statue erected at Google’s Mountain View headquarters garden. Simultaneously Android KitKat page came up and confirmed the upcoming version Android 4.4 is named after the Nestle’s owned chocolate Kitkat.
So the upcoming version of Android isn’t called ‘Key Lime Pie’ nor is it Android 5.0, it’s called Android 4.4 KITKAT. For now, we just know the name and we don’t know anything or what features this update will bring, but we’ll let you guys know once we‘ve got word on it.
Just back from a whirlwind trip to Asia visiting our Android ecosystem partners in Korea, Taiwan, and Japan. Exciting to see all the high quality Android devices available now, including Samsung Galaxy S4, HTC One, LG G2, Sony Xperia and many more. Also looking forward to the new devices our partners are launching in Berlin at IFA, played around with them last week and really nice — stay tuned; we’ve got a lot more coming! All this Android innovation is driving tremendous ecosystem momentum and I’m excited to share that together we’ve now passed 1 Billion Android device activations. Huge thanks to the entire Android community from the hardware manufacturers, chip makers and carriers to the developers and content creators to all of you – our Android users around the world – for making this possible. On my return from Asia, I was also thrilled to find this guy waiting to greet me on the front lawn — love the new #AndroidKitKat statue and can’t wait to release the next version of the platform that is as sweet as the candy bar that’s one of our team’s favorites:)
Sundar Pichai (via Google Plus)
Android Kitkat Contest:
Further the Kitkat official website announced that 50 million Kitkat-Android branded chocolates will be available in 19 countries including Australia, Brazil, Germany, India, Japan, Dubai, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States.
The wrappers of these chocolates can provide you a chance to Win a Nexus 7 or Google Play credit voucher. Just look for specially branded Kit Kat candy bars featuring the Android robot in a store near you.
It seems this contest will start on September 6th (2013) and ends on January 31(2014), through this contest both companies will offer 1000 Nexus 7 tablets, 150,000 $5 Google Play vouchers, and 20,000 coupons that offer Four 226 GM Kit Kat chocolates. A small number of Android robot-shaped KitKat bars will also be offered as prizes in selected markets.
Why Kitkat name for Android?
When I got to know the name about the Android 4.4 version, I was shocked and though something fishy as Google didn’t reveal why the named OS version based on branded chocolate. Later through this BBC article, I came to know that there was no money deal between the two companies and they have worked since 2012 for this mutual promotion.
“This is not a money-changing-hands kind of deal, instead, the idea was to do something fun and unexpected”, said John Lagerling, director of Android global partnerships.
Further the press release by Nestle provided more information about their partnership and promotion with Google.
The news that the letter ‘K’ will be dedicated to Nestlé’s KitKat will surprise most technology commentators, who had widely thought the latest version would be ‘Android Key Lime Pie’.
“We couldn’t imagine a better name for our Android K release than the tasty chocolate that’s been a favorite among the team since the early days of Android,” said Marc Vanlerberghe, Director of Android Marketing.
GOOGLE NEXUS 5 Spotted?
Also today Google released a teaser video of Android 4.4 (KitKat) showing the arrival and the launch of Andoid- Kitkat Robot at Google’s Mountain View headquarters garden.
However if you look the video closely, I think at 38 Seconds Of the 55 second video you can spot two Google employees holding a black phone and taking pictures with this unknown Smart-phone having the Nexus logo on its back panel, we think probably this the Nexus 5 smart phone revealed by mistake or the video was intended to be launched after the announcement of the device.
Originally this video was made available for public view on YouTube (link) , but for unknown reason Google now listed it as private. Google’s reaction to this video conforms the unknown phone is nothing but GOOGLE NEXUS 5 that.
Don’t worry, I uploaded the video on my YouTube account, you can view it on this page and if you look the video more closer you can spot LG logo on the front panel of this unknown phone.
This provides another reason to believe it is Nexus 5 and the manufacturer is LG, similar to new Nexus 7 the phone has a matte finish and has a large camera lens when compared with other Nexus devices, design wise the phone looks similar to LG’s G2 phone.
So, we can say that an official LG Nexus 5 phone is revealed by Google itself. But still it’s not official, who knows the spotted device may be a Nexus Camera in development,