Android 2.4 spotted running on prototype Xperia arc

Froyo, Gingerbread, Honeycomb. With all these Android versions flying about, it can be a little confusing (not to mention saliva-inducing).

Now it seems there’s another one to add to the mix – although there’s no delicious new codename attached to it.

Android 2.4 has been spotted running on a prototype Sony Ericsson Xperia arc device over on Dutch website Tweakers.net. However, this isn’t the adapted Honeycomb version that’s been predicted, nor is it some all-new sweet treat-named build (Ice cream, anyone?).

Rather, 2.4 appears to be a tweaked version of Gingerbread. Apparently, it contains some of the features that Google didn’t quite manage to squeeze into version 2.3.

These range from a new icon deletion animation to the implementation of visible video calling hooks – although this doesn’t seem to link to any video-enabled Google Talk functionality just yet.

It’s early days, of course, but we now have some idea of the direction Google’s going with its smartphone OS in the immediate future – and it’s not, for the time being, anything to do with Honeycomb.