This year will be the last year that Google uses dessert names for its operating systems, with Android 10 kicking off the new branding.
The operating system will only be followed by a version number because the tech giant experienced difficulties finding dessert names that were universally known.
Vice-president of product, Sameer Samat told 9to5Google that the company was able to find options like Queens Cake and quindim — a type of custard — for Q, but the latter is mainly popular in Brazil and the rest of the world may not know it.
“One piece of feedback we’ve gotten from users over the years is that the dessert names are not universally understood in different cultures and different languages. Food tends to sometimes be a local thing,” Samat told 9to5Google.
The tradition of naming major releases with desserts dates back to Android 1.6 Cupcake in 2009. That was followed up by 1.6 Donut, 2.0 Eclair, 2.2 Froyo, 2.3 Gingerbread, 3.0 Honeycomb, 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, 4.1 Jelly Bean, 4.4 KitKat, 5.0 Lollipop, 6.0 Marshmallow, 7.0 Nougat, 8.0 Oreo and 9 Pie.
In the case of some of these desserts, pie and marshmallow might not necessarily be considered universal desserts, Google explained.
It looks like this time around Google wanted to maintain a clean and short title with the simple Android 10. Google also indicated that it wanted it to be more accessible and revamped the Android logo to feature a new font and colour scheme. The font used to be green, but Google says it discovered some people with visual impairments found this hard to read so it changed the colouring to black.
Source: Google, 9to5Google
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