Android 5.0 (Lollipop) is old hat (already!).
Android 6.0 is the new flavour of Google's Android operating system, and much to my chagrin it has not been named after a certain "M" Monickered popular sweet, but instead after a Much More Mundane Morsel - It is Android Marshmallow.
Google - I thought that you wanted to dominate the world through your consumerism?
Why not M&Ms?
I'm not even a Massive fan of M&Ms. They are ok, but I much prefer their comical TV adverts.
Maybe I'm Missing something.
Maybe, More to the point, Google has Missed something. The king of consumer-driven Mass Marketing Mustn't have overlooked such a collaboration with M&Ms?
Maybe it's the typical blandness of Marshmallows which has affected My judgement, but My Mind is Made up: Google have Missed a Massive opportunity here.
Ok - I'll stop typing all of the capital "M"s now.
Google seems to play with it's marketing. It's company's systems probably know more about us than we would like, yet we still put our trust and faith in the company with our personal data, habits, and even our darkest secrets.
But, for all of Google's potential scariness, we somehow manage to find fun in using their highly functional and effective products (or at least some of them) - How many of you have stopped to watch or play with Google's latest logo, whenever a new one appears? They are interesting and fun.
It is easy to be sucked in by Google's insistence on using primary colours in their logo and brand, and it is a very recognisable brand - even though eBay and Trivago do appear to be ripping it off.
Of course there is a possibility that this formal announcement of yet another(!) version of Android is rightly annoying me - and it should be annoying you too, if you have recently bought an Android phone: Your new device is already outdated, and may as well be a year old.
The current top of the range flagships may, eventually, get an upgrade to Android Marshmallow, but as I have said so many times before, you will have to wait.
If you are lucky, this wait will be less than six months, but of course by that time Android N will be more than just a rumour.
Due to the way that Android and the handset manufacturers (and the network operators!) work, you might have to wait even longer, by which time your flagship phone will be truly old hat - if you even get an upgrade at all.
Android fragmentation continues apace, and apart from buying a device running the very latest version of Android every year, you will always be more likely to lay yourself open to all forms of malware.
Few of us can realistically be bothered to purchase a new handset or device every year (specifications don't actually change that much in a year), so there will always be a game of catch-up going on.
Google, if you are listening - and the fact that I'm using Blogger, and regularly use Google's services means that your code is crawling through this text - please slow down with your Android version releases. The world needs to catch up, and apart from die-hard Android and some tech fans such as myself, not everybody can afford to try to keep up with you!
Android One for developing countries didn't work, so now you are trying to build smartphones for less than $50 - Don't you realise that a $50 phone is all that many of your First World Country residents can afford?
Google's quest for world domination means that at some terminal point, the only things receiving upgrades will be Google's own devices when they become self-aware.
- I know that statement is tongue-in-cheek, but look at the way things stand right now: If you have a lovely Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge, your OS is now outdated. It will, hopefully, be upgraded to Marshmallow at some point, but that could be sometime next year.
Even Google's own Nexus programme has been farmed out to other developers/manufacturers, so the "type" Google flagships running stock Android really aren't the same as they were less than five years ago.
I'm not a soothsayer. I cannot tell you how this progressive mess will be fixed. All I know is that at some point Google will have to consolidate it's operating systems, otherwise the world will be a non-functioning, disjointed place where The Internet is a broken, unconnected, wiry tangle.
Microsoft (these days) at least have the decency to say that most people can get a free upgrade to Windows 10, on their laptops, mobiles and tablets. One OS to rule them all - and it looks like our children will grow up in a Windows 10 world.
I grew up in the BBC Micro and Commodore 64 world. They were stable devices that went on for years. Innovation and the pace of technology was much slower (but more interesting) back in the 1980s. The current drive to fill slightly incremental changes in hardware and software isn't inspiring or innovative. To be honest it makes me want to stick to an older, stable OS.
Apple, BlackBerry and Microsoft have all reached a point where their upgrades work on a biennial cycle, or thereabouts. Consumers know that they won't be left behind, and that their device will probably expire before it becomes totally unusable. Android on the other hand is working to make even the most expensive devices obsolete within twelve months.
These "developments" make me long for the days when I carried a Nokia Series 60 Symbian mobile around with me; it worked. But, I always wished that it would connect with a cloud service (even before they properly existed) so that my important contact, calendar and notes would be saved and available to my other Symbian devices.
Symbian S60 lasted for years (relatively, in today's ever-advancing technological climate).
Windows Phone is the nearest that we have to this simplicity. Google should have had this simplicity nailed years ago, but has since made things way too complicated: Android Donut (1.6) was lacking, but showed promise. Each and every early Android revision added functionality, but also an element of complexity.
This constant evolution has made many aspects of Google's Android OS fantastic and worryingly accurate in many cases, but in so many other ways this has created a world where a just-announced Marshmallow isn't the thing to make consumers believe in the operating system.
Android 5.0 to version 6.0 is a big step. Android 4.4 KitKat was good, but in my opinion the step up to 5.0 Lollipop was a step too far - I hate the Lollipop OS (Material Design is lovely, though). Hopefully Android Marshmallow 6.0 will be a big step away from Lollipop and let's hope that Google - or Alphabet - leave things alone to settle down for a couple of years at the very least.
