Google announces Android M is 6.0 Marshmallow, releases third and final developer preview

Google announced Android M back at Google I/O, and as usual, the speculation about what M could stand for was running wild. Now we know — Android M is Marshmallow, probably the most predictable choice. Much more surprising is that Marshmallow will be Android 6.0, which is a big jump in version number over 5.1 Lollipop. You can’t have the latest sweet treat from Google just yet, but there’s a new developer preview out today for select Nexus devices.
The tradition of naming Android releases after treats dates all the way back to Android 1.5, which was Cupcake. Apparently, the small Android engineering staff was prone to eating a lot of junk food during long coding sessions, and someone had the idea to name 1.5 after a dessert. The tradition stuck with subsequent releases being called Donut, Eclair, Froyo, Gingerbread, Honeycomb, Ice Cream Sandwich, Jelly Bean, KitKat, and finally Lollipop.
As usual, the big reveal came by way of a new statue on the lawn in front of Building 44 on the Google Campus, home of the Android team. There’s a statue for each of the named versions, though several of them (like Marshmallow) are just the green bugdroid holding the treat in question. The statues where the mascot literally becomes one with the treat are more fun. For example, the KitKat statue is a bugdroid-shaped giant KitKat bar.