Today marks the 8th birthday for Android. It was eight years ago today that the company announced the T-Mobile G1, or as it was known outside of the US, the HTC Dream. Hiroshi Lockheimer, the SVP of Android, Google Play and Chrome, took to Twitter to subtly hype the upcoming announcement that Google has planned for October 4th. Which is expected to be when the new Pixel and Pixel XL smartphones are announced by the search giant. Lockheimer’s Tweet read, “We announced the 1st version of Android 8 years ago today. I have a feeling 8 years from now we’ll be talking about Oct 4, 2016.”
As the SVP of Android, Google Play and Chrome, it’s basically his job to hype up the announcement. Just as he did the announcement of Android N’s actual name, before it was unveiled earlier this summer as Nougat. So this shouldn’t be surprising. However, he is hyping up the announcement in front of the core audience that buys Nexus devices, also known as the hardcore tech users. And if the rumors regarding pricing of the Pixel smartphones are correct, this audience isn’t going to be too happy with Lockheimer.
Google has already sent out invitations to their October 4th event in San Francisco, where the company is expected to announce these two new smartphones made by HTC. Ironically, the same company that made the T-Mobile G1 which started it all for Android – they also made the original Nexus in 2010. However, that’s not all that Google has in store for this event on October 4th, as recent leaks have shown us. It appears that Google has a slew of other announcements coming at this event, including Google WiFi, Chromecast Ultra and so much more. We’re also expecting to see Daydream launch, as well as Android Wear 2.0 and possibly Android 7.1 – which is rumored to launch on the Pixel and Pixel XL.
Lockheimer is doing a great job at hyping up the upcoming announcement. Now the big question is going to be whether the announcement actually holds up to that hype. We have just over a week before we’ll know the answer to that.