Android’s new OS to be named after Indian sweet?

Sweet-toothed Indians are campaigning for Google to name the latest Android update, currently going by the name of Android-N, after a local delicacy, Neyyappam.

The deep fried Indian dessert made of rice and jaggery (a type of unrefined sugar) is currently the forerunner of a poll set up by Google to find the codename for the new version of its operating system (OS).

The campaign has involved the country’s tech-savvy population and Kerala’s tourism board to help raise the profile of Neyyappam as a serious contender for the name of Android’s latest OS.

Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai, who recently talked about the rise of AI in online environments, comes from the state of Tamil Nadu, which neighbours with Kerala, where Neyyappam comes from.

During a recent visit to India, Pichai joked that he was opening the poll to give Indians a chance to vote for the local dessert.

Android’s naming of its OS updates follows two conventions. Each update thus far has been named after something sweet, and the names have followed an alphabetical order. The previous update, 6.0, is called Marshmallow.

Social media has grown the campaign exponentially, with #AndroidNeyyappam trending.

Three tech-savvy men, Arun V Kumar K C, Prasobh K and Sunil Joseph, even set up a website called www.androidneyyappam.com to help promote the poll choice.

Arun says: “Being a Malayali, I would be proud if Google names its upcoming Android version Neyyappam.”

The social media campaign has also been taken up by the Keralan Tourism Department, seeing it as an opportunity to promote tourism in the region.

Android-N has been under wraps for quite some time, but Google announced a developer preview build of version 7.0 in March 2016. At the I/O Keynote in May, the company revealed more details about what to expect from the new update.

It is largely aimed at high end smartphones, like Google’s own Nexus 6P and the Samsung Galaxy S7, as many of the touted new features are fairly resource intensive.

The new system will be exclusive to Google Nexus devices for the first six months following release, but will be made available to other devices after that.

As Virtual Reality (VR) has hit the front page of the tech world’s collective consciousness, the new range of options that encompass ‘VR mode’ will improve user experience with VR-based applications being extremely popular with fans of the new medium.

New graphics options will be supported by a Sustained Performance mode, which will target apps that require sustained levels of high intensity processing in order to more efficiently manage CPU usage and battery life.

Other features include a more efficient multi-window mode to aid multitasking, new shortcut customisation options and the ability to respond to messages via the notifications tab (a feature you can also find in Oneplus’ Oxygen OS).

Google’s online poll is open until June 9, 2016. Vote for ‘Neyyappam’ or submit other interesting suggestions here.