Android 3.0 to be called Gingerbread

Rumors of Google releasing version 3.0 of Android as early as this fall is surfacing all over the net. The largest focus is said to be on the user interface, and there is talk of Google making a lot of choices that Microsoft has been doing with Windows Phone 7.

The Gingerbread build is said to be requiring a certain spec from the phones it’s going to be installed on, for instance a 1GHz processor seems to be one of those requirements.

There will most likely be a minimum spec for the screen as well, to help developers a bit and not force them to cater to every screen resolution released so far. Just like Microsoft is setting minimum specs.

It’s also rumored that Google want to avoid the UI fragmentation going on in the Android scene where almost every manufacturer are delivering their own custom made UI. The way to do this is by focusing on providing a better stock UI, and then prevent device manufacturers from releasing phones with customized UI’s. This is the way Microsoft is handling Windows Phone 7 as well.

This is of course something that will help regarding the time to market for the newer Android builds. Because as it is now, all manufacturers have to tweak all their added software and home cooked UI’s after Google releases a new version of Android, which leads to longer time to market.

Rumor has it Gingerbread will be available as soon as October. The existing Froyo build is said to still be available, but kept as an OS for the lower spec range of phones.