Google may use an online poll to name Android N

Google CEO Sundar Pichai revealed that the company was considering an online poll for choosing how the next version of Android will be branded, according to NDTV (via XDA-Developers). The comment was made at a student forum in New Delhi, during a two-day stay in India by the Chennai-born executive.

Pichai, CEO since August, reportedly suggested to a crowded auditorium at Shri Ram College of Commerce that Indians could sway the results by voting in high numbers, leading to an Android version being named for the first time after a non-Western dessert (or perhaps a different theme entirely).

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Google has traditionally named each revision of the world’s most popular mobile operating system after a sweet food — since Android 1.5 Cupcake — moving sequentially through the letters of the alphabet. While at first even dot-version increases were given an entirely new branding, that changed alongside the release of 5.0 Lollipop, whose name was retained until the current major version update, 6.0 Marshmallow.

With only 13 letters left in the alphabet (10 if you eliminate Q, X, and Z), it’s been clear that Google will need to eventually stray from the status quo. Before it does that, however, giving the naming scheme a more international flavor would seem to be appropriate, given how widely used Android has become.