Google exec confirms Android M will be released this year

It wasn’t too long ago that we first heard whispers of the next version of Android, thanks to an error on the official Google I/O 2015 schedule. We have a strong suspicion that Google will introduce Android M at this year’s developer conference, but we haven’t actually received any confirmed information regarding the next release. However, thanks to a recent interview with a Google exec, it’s now confirmed that Android M will be released to the public before the year’s end.

Read more: What will Android M bring?

In an interview with Fast Company, Android’s Vice President of Engineering Hiroshi Lockheimer spills some details regarding Android M, and what Google’s plan is for future releases:

As we’ve grown as a platform, we realize that to some extent predictability is important for the whole industry: developers, manufacturers, operators, and consumers, frankly. So we’ve landed with sort of a yearly cadence of big releases, so, for instance, one year we release J, the next year we release K, and then the year after that L, and then this year we’ll launch M, and so you can predict what will happen next year.

This certainly isn’t any groundbreaking news, as we were already assuming that Google would release Android M the same way it released Android L – launching a developer preview at Google I/O, then releasing the final build to the public before the end of the year, likely with some new hardware. Even so, the interview does provide some helpful information, since we now know that Google is planning for yearly release cycles for bigger versions of Android. Lockheimer didn’t make any more comments on Android M in the interview.

We’ve already heard that the next version of Android may feature native fingerprint authentication and new voice controls, but what else do you hope Android M will bring? Let us know in the comments below!