The Nexus line is definitely not dead. Over the weekend, a report from Android Police claimed Google and the soon-to-be Lenovo-owned Motorola are working together on a 5.9-inch Nexus phone. Today, a separate report from The Information (subscription required) corroborates the earlier report and provides additional details.
Last year was an important one for Android. We saw the platform shift from around 50 percent market share to over 80. Meanwhile, the leading Android-based devices enjoyed big improvements to performance and functionality. Google's Nexus 5 seems to be the very embodiment of Android's progress.
Fancy getting your hands on a Nexus 7 without having to part with any cash? If you've been on the lookout for a 7-inch Android tablet, Google has a contest that may well be of interest. Providing you live in the US, you can take part in a photo competition to bag yourself either a free Nexus 7 or a $50 Google Play gift card. Sound tempting? All you need to do is take a photo of an arrangement of things that matter to you -- that's all there is to it!
In this, the fifth year of Android's existence, we also have seen the release of the fifth Nexus phone — appropriately enough called the Nexus 5. Meanwhile, it's been two years since we saw the release of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich — and since then we've only seen "point" updates, up to and including the latest, Android 4.4 KitKat.
Google showed off its new Android version 4.4 (or KitKat) operating system, running on a new flagship phone, the Nexus 5. Google uses its Nexus line to show off its new operating systems, and the device and OS are reflections of each other. Seen together, they reveal a Google that is boundlessly ambitious and aiming to take on the world with the things only it can do.
An entire year has passed since the launch of the original Nexus 7. We expected a successor to be announced before this year's Google I/O, and potential specifications have been floating around for longer than that. Imagine our disappointment then, when Google I/O's opening day keynote eschewed new hardware (and the Android version bump that customarily comes with new hardware) in favor of a series of impressive but smaller updates to many of Android's services and APIs. Hope springs eternal, though.
After desktops and phones, Ubuntu is now bringing its Linux distribution to tablets. Coming Thursday, preview images for Google's Nexus tablets will be released, so we can all get a good long look at what Canonical is cooking up. They've published a YouTube video which details all that Ubuntu has to offer for tablets, and to be honest, it's looking quite good.
Nexus 4 users are finally beginning to receive their Android 4.2.2 update, about 48 hours after it was first spotted on Galaxy Nexus, Nexus 7, and Nexus 10 devices. Users of LG and Google's latest Nexus handset may find themselves losing a desirable feature, though—AnandTech reports that an update to the phone's baseband software included in Android 4.2.2 appears to completely disable its partial, unofficial LTE support.
The tablet wars are hotting up ahead of Christmas 2012, and not just in the hugely competitive 7in segment, where the iPad mini and Google Nexus 7 are battling it out for holiday supremacy; there's more choice than ever in the full form factor market as well.
One of the reasons we liked the Nexus 7 so much was that it felt like a 7-inch tablet done right. Neither the form factor nor the $199 price point were new—Samsung, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and others were all pushing 7-inch Android tablets—but the ASUS-Google joint was the first whose hardware, software, and price came together to make a convincing case for a smaller tablet.
