Late last week, we learned that the next version of Android is codenamed "Gingerbread," and that it should be released in the fourth quarter of this year.  Now, the Googler in charge of Android has started to narrow down the timeframe and talk up the product.

It’s important to note that Andy Rubin, the vice president of engineering in question, didn’t make any specific promises, and may in fact have been generalizing after a quick discussion about the differences between Android 1.0 and Android 2.2.

Still, Rubin said during an interview with Matt Buchanan, "[I]t’s game on.  There is going to be stuff that’s just going to blow your mind.  In 6 months.  Before it was 18 months, now it’s 6 months."

So it appears that Gingerbread is supposed to come out of the figurative oven in November (perhaps in time for the heaviest part of the holiday shopping season?), and that despite the quick turnaround time, the next version of Android could represent a significant improvement over Froyo.

Unfortunately, Rubin didn’t drop any hints concerning those points, but as before, we’ll keep an eye out for additional (reliable) details.