The Android operating system gives each of its major releases a codename after sweets that are popular in North American culture. To mark Food Allergy Awareness Week, I dug into the list of previous release codenames to see if they could possibly shed some light on what Android version 7.0 “N” will eventually be named.
Each codename follows the next in an alphabetical order making the first letter of Android 7 — the next major release of the operating system — Android ‘N’. The previous names have been a mixed bag as far as allergy friendliness is concerned.
Android codenames allergen table
| Version | Codename | Egg | Lactose | Gluten | Nuts | Shellfish |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1.5 | Cupcake | ✓ | ||||
| 1.6 | Donut | |||||
| 2.0–2.1 | Eclair | |||||
| 2.2 | Froyo | ✓ | ||||
| 2.3 | Gingerbread | ✓ | ||||
| 3.0–3.2 | Honeycomb | |||||
| 4.0 | Ice Cream Sandwich | ✓ | ||||
| 4.1–4.3 | Jelly Bean | |||||
| 4.4 | Kit-Kat | ✓ | ✓ | |||
| 5.0–5.1 | Lollipop | |||||
| 6.0 | Marshmallow | |||||
| 7.0 | Nougat | ✓ | ||||
| 8.0 | Oreo | ✓ | ||||
| 9.0 | Pie | ✓ | ||||
This isn’t a complete nutritional nor allergen table and is only provided for entertainment.
Nuts and shellfish remain the only two out of the five major food allergies that haven’t been touched by the Android codenames until now. Many technology news sites speculate that Android 7 will be codenamed “Nougat” or possibly “Nutella”. Both of these sweet candidates would introduce the first sweet to the Android codename family that contains nuts.
“Nachos” could offer a more allergy-friendly alternative codename that would also see a departure from sugary sweets to a slightly more healthy type of snack. All the various ways you can serve nachos would surely be celebrating a type of food that’s more inclusive than the nuttier alternatives.
I lumped food allergies (e.g. reaction to lactose or nuts) and intolerance (such as Coeliac disease) together under the term “food allergies” in this article for the sake of briefness; though I’d to acknowledge that they are two different medical conditions. If you want to educate yourself on food allergies, check out foodallergy.org.