New Google Pixel-Like Device Dorado Appears
A new Google device with codename Dorado appeared this month in the Android Open Source Project Gerrit. This is a place where AOSP code is made public as Google works on Android behind the scenes. This is the same place we first saw mention of quite a few Google-made devices – Nexus, Android Wear, and Pixel devices, too.
The code was discovered by the ever-vigilant Artem Russakovskii of Android Police and APK Mirror this week. In the code, listed at GoogleSource we find mention of "RecoveryUI::ProcessKey() to be swipe-aware" – which leads us to believe Google is working on the platform's boot process and recovery. Recovery is not a system that the average Android user will ever access.
The same commit includes the text "prior to this CL, user may accidentally toggle the text mode during an OTA. Because it was considered as a single-button device, a long tap that sent BTN_TOUCH event would turn on text mode." This indicates that we're probably working with a device that probably ends up running Android Wear. A tiny device with a single button. But that bit is likely just the reason for the fix, not the device we're looking for.
Image above VIA: Instagram. That's from Google's official Android Instagram page, to be specific.
"Allow detecting touch inputs. Swiping (up, down, enter) works on angler, angelfish, dorado respectively." Angelfish was mentioned in the past – back in December of 2016 in this code – that's also on the same AOSP code collection here. In the full collection of Google device codenames (as listed by XDA Developers), we find no mention of Angelfish or Dorado.
ALSO: If Google Pixel 2 ditches its headphone jack, I swear to god
We do find that Google's name for their Android Emulator is Goldfish – and indeed they do mention Goldfish about a billion times in the gerrit. This bit is a stretch, but bear with me here – the only other codename that's close to Dorado is Dory, the Pixar fish, a codename that belongs to the wearable LG G Watch. The Dorado is a fish with a golden body (as seen above).
Say Google wanted to make an emulated Android device that's tagged specifically as a wearable. It might make sense to combine the names of one of the first wearables released with Android Wear, LG G Watch, Dory, and the name for the Android Emulator as it already exists: Goldfish, gold, Dory, do, Dorado.
If we accept that, we can also accept that the other unknown device has a similar structure. If that's true, then Angler could easily mix with Goldfish to become Angelfish. That'd be a mention of an Android Emulator that's specifically a smartphone.
Or I could be wrong altogether and we're seeing a Gold Pixel 2 XXL! We'll just have to wait and see!