Is Honeycomb Being Released as Android 2.3 this February?

It’s long been believed that the next iteration of Android – after the newly-launched Gingerbread 2.3  - would be Android 3.0. Honeycomb is to change the way people see and use Android, if not period then for a better tablet experience. From what we’ve seen so far in leaks and cameo appearances, Honeycomb definitely looks like enough of a jump to consider it more than just another incremental release.

A source of A&M’s says otherwise though: Honeycomb will be launching as Android 2.4, they say. Not that the version number really matters in the grand scheme of things, but if we assume Google approaches versioning – a very serious part of the software development cycle for any vendor – the same way company-wide, then we could assume that a major release like Honeycomb would warrant an entirely new version number. We wouldn’t be at Chrome 8 already, otherwise.

But that’s only if we assume. We really don’t know. The most interesting part of this rumor, though, is that their source seems to confirm a grand unveiling at the Mobile World Congress – a major industry trade show  - going down mid-February in Barcelona, Spain.

Not too much of a stretch considering we’re expecting to see some Honeycomb tablets in Q1 (and we’re still hearing rumors about a couple of Honeycomb tablets being shown as early as CES.) At least for that side of the story, I hope their source is right. I couldn’t really give two hoots about the version number. In fact, I’m more interested about how the oversized statue will look on the Android building’s front lawn.