AnDevCon III—the third iteration of our Android Developer Conference—will be coming back to the San Francisco Bay Area on May 14–17, 2012.

We had some excitement scheduling this conference, as those who attended AnDevCon II in November observed.

At first, we scheduled AnDevCon III for April 2012 (and publicized that in the show program we gave away at the conference). But then, in mid-October, Google announced that Google I/O—its two-day tech conference for all things Google, not just Android—would be on April 24–25.

“That’s not good,” we said. So our team went back to the drawing board and found some great dates in late June—and began gearing up for a public announcement.

But then Google decided that Google I/O needed to be three days, and they changed their dates to be June 27–29. Which happened to overlap the second set of dates we had selected for AnDevCon III.

Just like the bowl of petunias in Douglas Adams’ “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” we said, “Oh, no, not again!” Back to the drawing board.

Unless Google changes its mind (again), AnDevCon III will be May 14–17, 2012. As before, the first day will be pre-conference workshops; the other three days will be filled with technical classes.

We are very excited about AnDevCon III. We aren’t anticipating many changes from AnDevCon II; however, there will be lots more coverage of alternative platforms beyond smartphones and tablets. Thus, you’ll see more embedded Android sessions, an expansion beyond the single class we had on the Android-based Google TV, and also a deeper dive into Arduino.

Mark your calendars, and we look forward to seeing you there!

Alan Zeichick is editorial director of SD Times. Read his blog at ztrek.blogspot.com.