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Mysteries pop up in improbable places. Perhaps you're swimming in a public pool, and you don't know why someone threw a candy bar in the deep end (you hope it's a candy bar). You visit a diner, order coffee and pie, then die. Or maybe you find yourself on Google's sunny campus in Mountain View, California, and you realize, with a shudder, that all the little green Android statues are gone. Cue the creepy music: That third mystery is real and no one knows what to make of it.
Google dumped a snow cone on its new 3D Android 12 statue, and that's pretty much how we feel about it too
So... you wanna buy another?
Google's well-placed pride in Android has earned the OS some prized lawn paraphenalia over the years outside the company's headquarters in Mountain View, California. Unfortunately, we haven't seen it splash out for new fiberglass statues in recent years — following the pie-themed entry for Android 9, the company bored all of us with a very plain, dessert-less '10' statue and only created a similarly-styled virtual statue for 11.
Boring-up your living room with Google's Android 11 statue, now in AR
Don't you miss when the Android statues were actually fun?
Every year, Google does a statue for its latest Android release shortly after it comes out. (A long time ago, they even used to be fun.) This year the company is making a socially-distant twist, leveraging its recent focus on AR experiences to bring the boring Android 11 statue into all our homes.
In its usual fashion, Google has unveiled the statue that commemorates Android 10's release. Now that the sweet, dessert-themed names have been dropped, what do we have left to draw upon for statue-inspiring art? According to Google, a disembodied Android head and the number "10," pretty much what we were promised.
Android 9 Pie was officially released earlier today, but there was one thing missing from the announcement: the statue. You see, Google creates a statue to put on display at its Mountain View campus for each new Android dessert version. Lately, the statues had been getting pretty stale, though the Oreo one showed some improvement. The statue for Android 9 Pie, however, marks the return to boring bugdroids.
Google's last couple of Android statues have been thoroughly underwhelming. David was so incensed by the lack of effort that went into 'Bugdroid holding a marshmallow' and 'Bugdroid surrounded by 3 bits of nougat' that he even wrote an article lamenting them. Someone at Google must have been reading because Android 8.0 Oreo's statue is the most impressive for some time: a moving robotic Super Oreo-themed Bugdroid, no less.
Earlier this week, the following crane lift project notice was posted around the famous Android statue lawn next to building 44 on Google's Mountain View campus:
Today Android has officially passed one billion activated devices, according to Google's Vice President of Android, Chrome, and Google Apps, Sundar Pichai. To help celebrate this momentous occasion, there's a new Bugdroid-themed statue hanging out at the entrance to Google's Mountain View campus.
[Update: Better Pics!] New Google Statue Confirms Jelly Bean As The Next Version Of Android
When Google releases a new version of Android, it celebrates by putting a new statue outside of the Googleplex that represents the dessert-y codename.
When Google releases a new version of Android, it celebrates by putting a new statue outside of the Googleplex that represents the dessert-y codename.
This morning, Google employee Steven Le posted a photo of the Android statue outside his office, which looked a bit stranger than usual:
Another snack just arrived at Building 44. The Ice Cream Sandwich Statue finally joined all his friends in front of Android HQ!
Who needs to visit Disneyland to feel like a kid again? Google's collection of dessert statues that correspond to their Android releases has a new addition today, in the Honeycomb statue.
What do we have here? Why, it's a giant Gingerbread statue getting installed over at Googleplex, right next to Froyo and the rest of the gang. It's not exactly what we'd been expecting and hoping to see today, but it's a start. Last time the Froyo statue was installed, we got the SDK a week later. Bring it on, Google!