It’s always interesting to watch Eric Schmidt. Not because he’s working at Google, but mostly because you can be sure he’ll either leak some interesting fact or some rather obvious fiction.
At LeWeb in early December we once again saw a mixture of that, when he stated we’ll see developers choosing Android as their primary mobile OS and that most of the TVs being sold in 6 months will run Google TV.
Let’s have a look at the first prediction. Schmidt said:
There are so many manufacturers working so hard to distribute Android phones globally that whether you like ICS or not–and again I like it a great deal–you will want to develop for that platform, and perhaps even first.
This could potentially be possible, although I don’t really see a meaningful part of Androids existing handsets running ICS until then. Currently we only have one handset that’s shipping with Android 4.0 – the Galaxy Nexus – and one handset getting Android 4.0 over the air – the Nexus S. Although at this moment the Nexus S update has only been seen for T-Mobile USA, which has been paused as of today, due to “waiting for feedback”. In other words: a very small percentage of the overall Android market is running the current version after about a month of its release. Androids OTA strategy involves so many hoops to jump through between Googles original source code and your device, that it takes ages until you see an update notification.
I wonder if anyone has some data on how long it took manufacturers to release their Froyo to Gingerbread update?
Here’s the second one, about Google TV:
By the summer of 2012, the majority of the televisions you see in stores will have Google TV embedded.
I’m not sure whether he knows something that’s been a very well kept secret or if he actually meant 2013 or some other year in the future. Let’s give him the benefit of a doubt at least until CES in January, but I place my bets on “Won’t be happening”.
And, well, Schmidt did not disappoint when he went on to say in an interview in Italy recently that -again- in 6 months from now we’ll see a “competitive Google tablet”. Competitive with what? Other Android tablets? That’s certainly a possibility, looking at Android tablet sales (or shipments) in the past.
Just for reference, here’s one “6 months ago” (okay, it’s even been a bit longer) story, that came straight from Google.
I can’t wait for June 2012! Maybe 2012 will even be the year of the mainstream Linux desktop as well?
Also:
Eric Schmidt says Google will release its own version of “The Hobbit.”Of “the highest quality.”In “6 months.”Trailer is coming “soon.”
— Merlin Mann (@hotdogsladies) December 21, 2011