Though they warn to take the insight with a pinch of scrutiny, our buddies over at IntoMobile say they’ve got a trusted source pinning a date on the launch of the Android Gingerbread SDK.

The date they’re hearing: Novemember 11th. As they adeptly pointed out, this is just 3 days after Samsung’s scheduled to launch something in New York City. Put that together with the fact that Samsung’s supposedly working on a Gingerbread-powered “Nexus Two”, and things sort of start to come together.

Of course, as with the launch of all other Android updates, a November 11th launch wouldn’t mean it’s on your handset on that day — just that the SDK is out there. You won’t see it on your kit until (/unless) your respective carrier gets around to building an update… unless the hacking community does it first, which is pretty much standard these days.

Take this with the grainiest grain of salt in all of Grainysaltsville for now, as photoshopping something like this would take little more than 18 seconds and dash of boredom — but according to GizmoFusion, that shot you’re looking at up above is pulled straight off a handset running Android 2.3 (Gingerbread).

Fear not! Their source came bearing alleged details, as well.

According to their tipster, Gingerbread should offer up considerably better battery life thanks to “better power management”, a new call button, and a few other graphical tweaks throughout the UI. Last we heard, the Android team was also crackin’ away at a whole new copy-and-paste system (moving beyond just copy and pasting text), improved social networking integration, and playback support for Google’s WebM video format.

Alas, it’s all up in the air until Google comes out and confirms a feature list — even things that are in beta builds are subject to getting pushed back to the next release at the last minute.

Any hopes and dreams for features that Google manages to squeeze into Gingerbread? Drop’em in a comment below.

It’s that time again. Another giant treat arrived at the Googleplex today, which means a new version of Android is just around the corner. A video was just uploaded to the Android Developers YouTube account which shows a giant Gingerbread man joining his friends FroYo, Eclair, Donut, and Cupcake.

As it was pointed out today, Gingerbread will likely become Android 2.3 and Honeycomb is expected to become Android 3.0 when it hits tablets next year. If history repeats itself we could have an official announcement on Android 2.3 features sometime next week. The FroYo statue appeared just one week before Google I/O where Android 2.2 was unveiled.

The Android 2.3 update is being called a major release, but it might not change the core experience as much as some expected. Most of the additions are said to be UI tweaks and we could see new services like video calling, Google Music, and maybe even Google Books.

We hear Samsung is currently working on a Google-experience phone with stock Gingerbread, which could be the first new phone to ship with the latest OS.

In addition to the new Samsung phone, most existing devices that already have Android 2.2 should eventually see Android 2.3 once the carriers get their hands on it. If you phone is still on Android 2.1 or earlier, don’t hold your breath waiting for an update (except the Galaxy S I’m hoping).

For those of you keeping track at home, after Gingerbread and Honeycomb are released the next versions to look out for are Ice Cream and Jelly Bean.