Today, Google announced their Q3 financial results for 2011, which showed a significant increase in profits, and they also mentioned that there are now 190 million Android devices out there, and already 40 million Google+ accounts. But Larry Page also said something very interesting about the upcoming Android 4.0 version (which by the way is confirmed for October 19th). He said that:
“You won’t believe what we have managed to do in this release. We see Android going gangbusters and we don’t see anything that will stop that.”
So what could they have possibly put in there? Would it be more like something we already expect, but with great performance improvement (like say GPU acceleration)? Would it be something that’s also somewhat expected, like putting Chrome in Android 4.0? Or will it be something entirely new they’ve been working on and they will completely wow us with when they show it?
We already know that they’re going to unveil the Galaxy Nexus, and if we’re lucky we might even see the Asus Transformer 2 with Android 4.0 on board. That would be a great way for them to show how well Android 4.0 works on both phones and tablets. They promised Android 4.0 would unify the phone and tablet operating systems, and this would be a great way to lead by example, and announce that both are launching at the beginning of November. While Asus Transformer 2 with Android 4.0 remains uncertain, we’ll still probably get Kal-el inside and a Full HD 1920×1200 IPS display.
What’s certain is that Android 4.0 needs to impress. Even if Android is at the top of the game right now, it has to maintain that lead in smartphones and keep WP7 at bay, making it look obsolete once again, while raising momentum fast for the Android 4.0 tablets until Windows 8 tablets start arriving. And that’s without even considering the much more immediate “threats” like the iPad and Kindle Fire in the tablet market. Android 4.0 needs to wow us, and if Larry Page is telling the truth, it just might.