Contrary to what one idiot mistakenly said the Nexus One should continue to be the testing grounds for Android 3.0. While Google has reportedly placed minimum hardware requirements on devices running the platform, its own phone meets them and should continue to get OS updates before the rest of the Android world. But there can, and probably will, come a time when we again see even more stringent hardware requirements for new Android builds. At some point, I’m guessing, the Nexus One will no longer meet them.
What will Google do at that point? By the time we’re ready for Android 4.0 or some significantly upgraded version of 3.0, there will be a number of devices with processors running at 2GHz or better, so they’ll have many options for the torch-bearer. But might they simply release a follow-up to their own handset? They’re saying no for now, but considering we won’t see Android 4.0 until some point in 2011 things can easily change.
Andrew Kameka at Androinica believes that Google will make a U-Turn on the Nexus Two issue, and I think he makes a good case. After all, Google denied its involvement in phone making as recently as October 2009, when Andy Rubin said that Google is “not making hardware…we’re enabling other people to build hardware.” News of the Nexus One leaked the next month, and it was available to the public by January.
Then again, it’s not like Rubin lied when he said that the company was not making hardware. Although the Google logo adorns the back of the N1, HTC did the manufacturing. To that end, then, is there anything in what Eric Schmidt said to The Telegraph that might be something similar to Rubin’s statement?
The idea a year and a half ago was to do the Nexus One to try to move the phone platform hardware business forward. It clearly did. It was so successful, we didn’t have to do a second one. We would view that as positive but people criticised us heavily for that. I called up the board and said: ‘Ok, it worked. Congratulations – we’re stopping’. We like that flexibility, we think that flexibility is characteristic of nimbleness at our scale.
Two snippets stand out. First, when Schmidt says that he called up the board and told them that they’re stopping, well, that’s exactly what happened. Google recently starting phasing out Nexus One web sales. But, again, that doesn’t really look forward to another possible device. That’s where the other part comes into play. Schmidt says that Google “didn’t have to do a second one.” No, they didn’t have to, nor do they have to now. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that they won’t.
This isn’t to say that Google will or will not release a follow-up to the Nexus One. I just don’t take Schmidt’s comments as a straight denial. I think he’s using the statement more to emphasis that the original accomplished the goals the company set for it. But eventually Android will evolve to the point where the N1′s hardware won’t be sufficient. Who knows, maybe that’s further down the line than Android 4.0. But when the time does come, I wouldn’t count out Google partnering with HTC or Motorola or another big time Android handset manufacturer for another standard bearer.
