Android Updates Will Come Once a Year

Google VP Andy Rubin –founder and leader of the Android platform- revealed in an interview the Silicon Valley Mercury News that the mobile OS will get a yearly update once things get settled down in the near future. The Android has come up with 4 major upgrades since its launch in 2008 with 2 per year.

Rubin also admitted to not being completely satisfied with the launch which to him felt like an ‘8’ rather than a ‘1.0’.

So we launched it, and from our internal 0.8, we got to 1.0 pretty quickly, and we went through this iteration cycle. You’ve noticed, probably, that that’s slowed down a little bit. Our product cycle is now, basically twice a year, and it will probably end up being once a year when things start settling down, because a platform that’s moving — it’s hard for developers to keep up. I want developers to basically leverage the innovation. I don’t want developers to have to predict the innovation.

In a question regarding which other products are likely to come loaded with Android other than cell phones, Rubin says that Google will be doing “everything [it] can to get the big ones” namely PCs, cars and TVs.

We’re at about 4 billion cell phones. About 1.4 billion Internet connected PCs — that includes desktop and laptops and everything else. Like 1.2 billion automobiles. Some 800 million TVs.

And it’s like, “OK, let’s target the top four.” Let’s do everything we can to get the big ones. Remember, our business is volume, because it’s an advertising business and we want to delight a lot of people. And how do you delight a lot of people? You get in the products that they use every day.

With Google TV just launched that does not come as a surprise.

[via Techcrunch]