Google Updates Documentation on CDMA Galaxy Nexus Support

The CDMA flavor of Galaxy Nexus has some issues related to the manner in which telephony was implemented, and Google has made some changes to the support it offers to these devices.

Apparently, it all has to do with the implementation of core telephony functionality into .apk files in recent CDMA Android devices.

Carriers provide the functionality in binary, and these .apk files must be signed by the “platform” key. However, when custom builds are created from the AOSP source code, a different signing key is used.

“The result is that these files don't work properly, and pure AOSP builds running on these devices can't place calls, access mobile data, and so on,” Developer Advocate Dan Morril notes in a post on Google Groups.

“Because we aim to make sure that we are as clear as possible about the degree of support that devices have, we updated the docs over at source.android.com to reflect this reality.”

Some feared that the Internet giant might have dropped support for the device and handled it over to CDMA wireless carriers such as Verizon, but it appears that this is not the case.

Google continues to offer support for the handset, and will look into continuing to bring improvements to it.

The change will leave the manner in which updates are being delivered to devices unchanged. Google will be the company to deliver new software to Galaxy Nexus even on CDMA networks.

They will also continue to offer support for developers who use CDMA devices, and will make closed-source binaries available for these handsets.

“We will still make available as many as possible of the closed-source binaries for these devices, and Nexus devices will continue to have unlockable bootloaders,” Dan Morril continues.

“And, of course, GSM/HSPA+ devices are still supported, as are any other devices we're able to support. We've simply updated the documentation to be clearer about the current extent of CDMA support.”