The next version of Android is due to be released this fall. And Google has withdrawn the desserts’ name for the upcoming Android Q. So, no more sweetness in the names, the next Android name will be called just Android 10.
With this, Google has broken the 10-year history of naming releases after desserts. It’s gouging on providing a codename that commences with a subsequent letter of the alphabet (Q, in this case). So the naming will be Android 10 for this year and Android 11 for the next subsequently.
After a long journey, the Android brand’s apotheosis has expeditiously changed without altercation that resolves a predicament, quitting the idealistic quest to pull a Q dessert out of the convulsion. Similarly, Google won’t falter on the decision to deviate from desserts that answers a quadrillion bearish about the names. And Google elects it as a strange tradition that needed to be quite defeated — or at least annihilated. Alternatively, the codename will be confined inside Google. But all these seem a dilemma but at least qualitatively, the new naming scheme is less bizarre.
Also, Google has updated its Android logo too, one that Aude Gandon, global brand director for Android, says has a “more modern” wordmark. Essentially, it will always include the little green robot. Gandon says, “The robot is what makes Android special. It makes it human, fun, and approachable”.
Sameer Samat, VP of product management for Android at Google says, “the actual reason for switching the naming isn’t that Q is hard, rather desserts aren’t very inclusive. He argues saying, “We have some good names, but in each and every case they leave a part of the world out”.
The Android users are more in India and Brazil than in the US, so an English word for the dessert leaves some regions out. The word ‘Pie’ doesn’t always refer to a dessert. Similarly, the word ‘Lollipop’ can be hard to pronounce in some regions, and ‘Marshmallows’ aren’t really a thing in a lot of places,” Samat says. While the numbers are at least universal.
On the other hand, Google will still make the traditional Android statue of the robot but of the number 10 instead of a dessert. Regarding the new wordmark and logo, looks like, it’s the latest example in a long line of companies taking eccentric wordmarks and turning them into blandified brands. This has been the trend for some years now.
Gandon claims that the changes were crucial to making the wordmark accessible and readable — especially on smaller screens. She says, “In all honesty, when we did the acid test of doing it in really small spaces [like a screen or phone boxes], the current lettering was really a challenge”. Crucially, the wordmark is no longer green rather black, making it more readable in more contexts.
Gandon team also changed the robot subtly, moving the eyes down along with a twist in the antennae. Similarly, they pulled some yellow tinge out of the green that makes it more readable as well as adds some secondary colors to Android’s overall brand palette that aids with accessibility.
Moreover, Gandon states, “Android will be represented by more than “green and gray”. Blue, which is Google’s one of the primary colors is now included in the secondary colors.
If you want to know what the Q in Android Q stands for, Google seems to never publicize it. While it’s official as Android 10 for the public, the Android team still will be using internal codenames in alphabetical order. Samat also said that the engineers at Google have also already chosen the word they will use internally for Android R.
