The big news spreading around the techie blogosphere this week is Google announcement of Android 3.1, dubbed ‘Ice Cream Sandwich.’  While undoubtedly an expected boom for local purveyor of all things cold and yummy IT’S IT, the main benefit of Ice Cream Sandwich is that it promises to combine mobile phone and tablet OS architectures.   Additional improvements include increased multitasking, holographic user interfaces, and richer widgets.  However, let’s focus on the unified architectures…

This is great for designers—no longer will Android developers have path A for tablets and path B for smartphones.  While it may not necessary halve the work it takes to develop a program for Android, it certainly does take a good amount of customization work out of the equation, which will inevitably bring products to market quicker.  From the QuickLogic POV, we’ve certainly experienced the pains of developing MDDO for smartphones, and then having to make a version to fit tablets.  A single version for both form factors lessens our work when as we revise and improve MDDO, allowing us to get the software accompaniments to our VEE-based CSSP chips into customers hands quicker.  Admittedly, our software is generally ready well in advance of being a critical path item…but it’s always better to be the lead dog.

I can see where this also helps in Google’s race to be the OS of choice for designers.  As Android tablets gain somewhat of a foothold against the iPad, developers can address both tablets and smartphones with a single piece of 3.1-designed software.  iOS already has this, and with Android presumably caught up (assuming Apple doesn’t pull another rabbit out of their seemingly magical hat), Android seems to have cemented its place as the OS to beat.

Now I just have to find the nearest place selling It’s It…