Serious question: If it's an improved 2.5 model, why don't they call it version 2.6? Seems annoying to have to remember if you're using the old 2.5 or the new 2.5. Kind of like when Apple released the third-gen iPad many years ago and simply called it the "new iPad" without a number.

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skerit 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

That's why people called the second version of Sonnet v3.5 simply v3.6, and Anthropic acknowledged that by naming the next version v3.7

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alwillis 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It's pretty common to refer to models by the month and year they were released.

For example, the latest Gemini 2.5 Flash is known as "google/gemini-2.5-flash-preview-09-2025" [1].

[1]: https://openrouter.ai/google/gemini-2.5-flash-preview-09-202...

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cpeterso 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

If they're going to include the month and year as part of the version number, they should at least use big endian dates like gemini-2.5-flash-preview-2025-09 instead of 09-2025.

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relatedtitle 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I'm pretty sure Google just does that for preview models and they drop the date from the name when it's released.

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herpderperator 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Or, you know, just Gemini 2.6 Flash. I don't recall the 2.5 version having a date associated with it when it came out, though maybe they are using dates now. In marketing, at least, it's always known as Gemini 2.5 Flash/Pro.

	▲	vitorgrs an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		It always had dates... They release multiple versions and update regularly. Not sure if this is the first 2.5 Flash update, but pretty sure Pro had a few updates as well... This is also the case with OpenAI and their models. Pretty standard I guess. They don't change the versioning, because I guess they don't consider it to be "a new model trained from scratch".
	▲	kingo55 4 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		It had a date, but I also agree this is extremely confusing. Even semver 2.5.1 would be clearer IMO.

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qafy 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

2.5 is not the version number, it's the generation of the underlying model architecture. Think of it like the trim level on a Mazda 3 hatchback. Mazda already has the Mazda 3 Sport in their lineup, then later they release the Mazda 3 Turbo which is much faster. When they release this new version of the vehicle its not called the Mazda 4... that would be an entirely different vehicle based on a new platform and powertrain etc (if it existed). The new vehicle is just a new trim level / visual refresh of the existing Mazda 3.

That's why Google names it like this, but I agree its dumb. Semver would be easier.

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JumpCrisscross 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Maybe they’re signalling it’s more of a bug fix?

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manquer 2 hours ago | parent [-]

2.5.1 then .

semantic versioning works for most scenarios.

	▲	JumpCrisscross 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Would that automatically roll over anyone pinging 2.5 via their API?