Android 2.3 Gingerbread is the seventh version of Android, a codename of the Android mobile operating system developed by Google and released in December 2010, for versions that are no longer supported.
| Version of the Android operating system | |
 | |
Android 2.3.7 on an Android SDK emulator
| |
| Developer | |
|---|---|
| Initial release | December 6, 2010; 13 years ago (2010-12-06)[1] |
| Final release | 2.3.7_r1 (GWK74)[2] / September 21, 2011; 12 years ago (2011-09-21) |
| Kernel type | Monolithic (Linux) |
| Preceded by | Android 2.2.3 "Froyo" |
| Succeeded by | Android 3.0 "Honeycomb" (tablets) Android 4.0 "Ice Cream Sandwich" (smartphones) |
| Official website | developer |
| Support status | |
| Unsupported, Google Play Services support dropped since January 2017[3] | |
The Gingerbread release introduced support for near field communication (NFC)—used in mobile payment solutions—and Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)—used in VoIP internet telephones.[4] The first phone with Android Gingerbread was the Nexus S.
Gingerbread's user interface was refined, making it easier to master, faster to use, and more power-efficient. A simplified color scheme with a black background gave vividness and contrast to the notification bar, menus, and other user interface components. Improvements in menus and settings resulted in easier navigation and system control.
The Nexus S smartphone, released in December 2010, was the first phone from the Google Nexus line that ran Gingerbread, and also the first one from the line with built-in NFC functionality.[5]
As of October 2022[update], statistics issued by Google indicate that 0.11% of all Android devices accessing Google Play were running on Gingerbread.[6] Google ceased sign-in support for Gingerbread on September 27, 2021.[7]
New features introduced by Gingerbread include the following:
Media related to Android Gingerbread at Wikimedia Commons