The Nexus family of smartphones hasn’t been cut out by Google

Jun 27, 2014 06:42 GMT  ·  By

Contrary to what the latest rumors claimed, Google will continue to launch Nexus devices and the confirmation came recently directly from one of company’s officials.

For those who don’t remember, here is a quick recap on what the latest hearsay regarding Google’s Nexus lineup is. Less than two months ago, rumors that Google might cut out the Nexus family of smartphones entirely and replace them with something else called Android Silver hit the Internet.

Now, one month and a half after the first rumors claiming the removal of the Nexus handset from Google’s roadmap started to emerge, Head of Android Engineering and Google’s Nexus program, Dave Burke was kind enough to clarify the confusion.

In an interview during Google I/O event, Burke told ReadWrite that the Nexus program would continue and that it was not going anywhere. Google will launch a Nexus smartphone this fall, along with the new Android L operating system.

The next Nexus smartphone will be officially unveiled at the same time the final version of Android L is released for all Nexus and Google Play Edition devices.

Here is Burke’s full statement: “When we are working, there are sort of two outputs. We’re building a Nexus device and we’re building the open source code. There is no way you can build the open source code without the phone or tablet or whatever you are building. You have to live and breathe the code you are developing.

You can’t build a platform in the abstract, you have to build a device (or devices). So, I don’t think can can or will ever go away. And then, I think Nexus is also interesting in that it is a way of us explaining how we think Android should run. It is a statement, almost a statement of purity in some respects. I don’t see why we would ever turn away from that, it wouldn’t make sense.”

Obviously, there’s a change that the next Google phone will not be named Nexus 6. Perhaps the search giant will want to refresh its lineup by giving it another name, though Dave Burke is pretty clear when he refers to Google’s project as Nexus.

There are still several months until the official unveil of the Nexus 6 smartphone, or whatever its name is, so it might be a bit too early to talk about specs. However, we expect lots of leaks to pop up during the wait, so stay tuned for all the details.