Eric Schmidt: Next Version of Android will “Combine” Honeycomb and Gingerbread

During his keynote speech today at MWC, Eric Schmidt helped clarify what the future version of Android will end up being.  There has been a lot of talk on whether or not Honeycomb would be available to phones or if the version to follow Gingerbread would simply pull certain parts out of its tablet brother.  According to Schmidt, they will essentially be “combined”…

“We have OS called Gingerbread for phones, we have an OS being previewed now for tablets called Honeycomb. You can imagine the follow up will start with an I, be named after dessert, and will combine these two.”

We heard rumors back in January that this version of Android would be called “Ice Cream Sandwich“, but only the “i” part was confirmed today.

So what should we expect?  The polish and feel of Honeycomb but on a smaller scale?  Will this just mean that phones and tablets can use apps without error?  Hopefully we find out at Google I/O in May.  Oh, and did I mention we’ll be there covering the whole thing?