Google announces Android M is 6.0 Marshmallow

Google announced Android M back at Google I/O, and as usual, the speculation about what M could stand for was running wild. Now we know — Android M is Marshmallow, probably the most predictable choice. Much more surprising is that Marshmallow will be Android 6.0, which is a big jump in version number over 5.1 Lollipop. You can’t have the latest sweet treat from Google just yet, but there’s a new developer preview out today for select Nexus devices.
The tradition of naming Android releases after treats dates all the way back to Android 1.5, which was Cupcake. Apparently, the small Android engineering staff was prone to eating a lot of junk food during long coding sessions, and someone had the idea to name 1.5 after a dessert. The tradition stuck with subsequent releases being called Donut, Eclair, Froyo, Gingerbread, Honeycomb, Ice Cream Sandwich, Jelly Bean, KitKat, and finally Lollipop.
As usual, the big reveal came by way of a new statue on the lawn in front of Building 44 on the Google Campus, home of the Android team. There’s a statue for each of the named versions, though several of them (like Marshmallow) are just the green bugdroid holding the treat in question. The statues where the mascot literally becomes one with the treat are more fun. For example, the KitKat statue is a bugdroid-shaped giant KitKat bar.
This news is currently focused on developers. Google has released a new version of the Android SDK to help in the design of apps. This is version 6.0 of Android, but the API level is 23, meaning it’s the 23rd distinct development platform version since Android launched. This is the official SDK, so developers can use it to design and test apps that are fit for publishing in the Play Store. Users of Marshmallow devices should be able to download and use them when the time comes without issue.
Google has made the new preview available as a flashable system image for the Nexus 6, Nexus 5, Nexus 9, and Nexus Player. An OTA might come later, but this close to release it’s no guarantee. Installing the image on a Nexus device isn’t hard, though.
Android 6.0 will bring a number of important features that have been severely lacking, including more stringent control of background processes and battery usage, configurable permission control, application data backup, and the Google Now on Tap contextual search. Now that the final developer tools and the name have been announced, it shouldn’t be long until the OS is released to the lucky few Nexus owners. Everyone else will have to wait for the bureaucratic nightmare of carriers and OEMs to develop and test an update.
 
Source: Extreme Tech