It’s Google day in the Android world as the Mountain View company unveiled the Nexus S and unleashed the Android 2.3 “Gingergbread” SDK into the capable hands of the developer community. While the world takes a long and close look at the successor to the Nexus One, original Nexus One users are anxiously awaiting their taste of Gingerbread.
An early report out of Engadget suggested the OTA update was already being pushed out to Nexus One handsets. This report is apparently premature as Reto Meier, Developer Advocate at Google, tweeted that the update was still a few weeks away. This timing would provide for a late December or early January release and would give the NS a few weeks in the spotlight as the first Gingerbread device.
This end of the year roll out fits in nicely with previous Android releases. In the past, Google has released the Android source code and the SDK to developers first. OTA updates started arriving a few weeks later for pure Android devices like the N1 or the G1. Updates for carrier-subsidized devices or devices that include a customer overlay UI like MOTOBLUR would arrive weeks or even months later due to the extra development time needed to update these customizations.
While you wait for Gingerbread to land on your handset, you can check out Google’s user guide to Android 2.3 which details all the salient information about this latest revision. Of course, you can alway opt to store your N1 for posterity sake and walk away with a Nexus S starting December 16th.
[Via Twitter]