Android easter egg history gingerbread marshmallow – Breaking News & Latest Updates 2026
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What’s your favorite Android Easter egg?

Quick, what’s the first thing you should do when you update Android? The answer, obviously, is going to settings and repeatedly tapping on the version number until weird things happen. Sometimes it’s a sea of jelly beans. Sometimes it’s a Flappy Bird clone. At one point it was ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (but only temporarily).

Google has a long history of hiding Easter eggs throughout its product cycle — even the much-derided Nexus Q has a Magic 8 Ball feature — but the Android version Easter egg is one of the most consistent and enjoyable oddities. As part of their 20 percent time — wherein Google engineers can spend approximately one day a week working on tangential projects — Nat & Lo took a brief look at the history of the Android “version number” Easter egg, which dates back to “Zombie Gingerbread.”

There’s no sign of Marshmallow’s goof (spoiler: it’s another Flappy Bird clone), but if you’re so inclined, Nat & Lo previously made a behind-the-scenes look at the Marshmallow statue.

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