I understand the difference too...
And I don't mind people saying "update" instead of "development branch"...
It's not going to affect me in any way.. =P
It's not hairsplitting, it's a fundamentally different thing. That's like saying "I bought Toyota Motor Corporation" when you actually meant "I bought a Rav4" or saying "I'm going to the grocery store to get PepsiCo, Incorporated" when actually you're just picking up a six pack of Mountain Dew.
An
update is an improvement/bug fix/new features. A
development branch is a part of the company that works on said "updates".
It's kinda like saying "oh did you get Microsoft Development Branch?" every time there's a Windows Update. They're not sending you the department, they're sending you features and fixes(in MS's case, it's mostly fixes and rarely features).
Using the word "cupcake" is inaccurate. The entire department working on fixes and features isn't being sent to our phones. Nor are all of the fixes and features being sent to our phones all at once.
For example, let's say we get an update that has the onscreen keyboard and a few other odds and ends....and then six months down the line they release another update that has full bluetooth features and then 6 months from there we get the video recorder --- which one is "cupcake"? If someone asks "how do I get cupcake?" what are they referring to? If someone says "I have cupcake!" which one are they talking about? Does anyone know?
Using "cupcake" to refer to the next update isn't very helpful. It's highly unlikely this next update will have all the items on the current cupcake docket. Emphasis on the word "current" as we all know that Google doesn't give up development of their products, the CDB(Cupcake Development Branch) will probably have more things added to their list as time goes by.
The term "Cupcake" is too ambiguous and vague to be of any use at this point. When it first came out, we thought it meant ONE update that's going to fix everything and add all these new goodies. We've since learned that "Cupcake" is just a branch, not a release, not an update, and there's going to be more than one update from them.
Calling it 1.5, or Bite One, Vanilla, or something that is more concrete is the best option.
