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Google To Drop Nexus Brand Name, Move Away From Stock Android (theverge.com)
tripleevenfall quotes a report from The Verge: Google's newest smartphones won't be Nexus devices after all. According to Android Central, Google is dropping the Nexus branding with its two upcoming, HTC-made smartphones. Instead, the company is expected to market the devices under a different name and to lean heavily on the Google brand in the process. This shift is more than just symbolic. The report states Google will load the devices with a special version of Android Nougat, as opposed to the standard "vanilla" version of the operating system that's shipped on past and current Nexus devices. Android Police reported earlier this month that Google may remove the Nexus branding from its upcoming smartphones and replace it with a "G" logo. It's too early to tell which direction Google is taking with its upcoming Android Nougat smartphones. Google has spent years marketing the Nexus brand as a hardware entity, while Google has reserved its own name for software services.
"We want to load up our devices with even more shit that nobody wants or needs, and make it even harder for you to remove it."
Don't be evil my ass.
I have owned two Nexus7 tablets. I still have the second one and use it every day. It is getting a bit old but I haven't replaced it because they stopped making the 7 in favor of the larger 9 which is too expensive. The 7 was a great bloat-free device at a great price ($200 ish). I was hoping Google would reintroduce the 7 but I guess those hopes are lost. Time to start looking at some replacement candidates. Suggestions?
Keep the Classic Slashdot.
http://www.androidpolice.com/2...
I loved putting mods with aosp on my phones, and I was actually thinking about a nexus next (although Google constantly deciding not to include a removable battery and at times a microsd card turned me off to them previously).
I'm all for rebranding... But the nexus line was actually good branding for them. I don't see a need for it. Then again, most branding people and designers sometimes find it a bit too easy to switch things up in case it could be better...
But there goes all that free photo storage. I knew it was too good to be true.
The only reason I bought the Nexus devices was because of the vanilla version of Android. So where does that leave me? Is Cyanogen still evil too? Any good alternative after market firmware?
Android has become a fucking nightmare.
I run a lot of apps. Restricting movement of apps to SD SUCKS and has been the bane of my existence.
I've had 2 LG G4 phones die (not bootloop but dead wifi/bluetooth). The first time it was as straight replacement. The second replacement was a saga involving being illegally moved off my phone plan etc. I digress.
What gets me is the process to set the thing up once you get it back. The second replacement was on Marshmallow not Lollipop and LG have decided not to include adoptable storage as an option. So I can have less on my new phone than I did on my old. I tried to use adb to get adoptable storage working, and it did, but the first time I had copied from the old phone's profile and there was an obscure error any time I tried to look at apps or storage. So Reset. The second time I moved all my apps to the adoptable storage and blam. Slow reboot loop. Third attempt I gave up on adoptable storage.
You wanna change branding Google? I suggest you ditch naming your versions after desserts and start naming them after sexually transmitted diseases., Android Syphilis. Android Genital Warts. Android Gonorrhea. Android Chlamydia
Oh and FUCK YOU GOOGLE.
So what's your problem? There's no reason to believe that other than changing the branding, there's going to be any major change in direction. They probably want to drive some slightly more interesting hardware designs, as the Nexus phones have become a little boring.
I had a Nexus S back in the day (still in a drawer somewhere actually), with the contoured Super AMOLED screen; that was an interesting and distinctive phone at the time. By comparison, there's not much exciting about my Nexus 5, it's a good phone at a decent price, but that's as exciting as it gets. So if they're going to make things more interesting again with the hardware, I'm all for it.
Oh no... it's the future.
I don't understand the reason for going away from "vanilla" Android.
Wasn't the point of the Google Nexus line to produce reference implementations of devices for the Android operating system, to show to other brands by competing with them which minimum features and specifications that Google thought that Android devices should have?
"We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
This, combined with the gutting of Google Fiber, reminds us yet again that Google is akin to having a hot but crazy lover; really exciting until one day you wake up on fire.
Android has become a fucking nightmare.
I own an android tablet but frankly I find most Android devices to be more of a PITA than I prefer to deal with. Most of them come with crapware or annoying custom versions that usually don't improve things. I'm not an Apple fanboi but at least for a phone usually I find iOS less headache inducing. When I upgrade my phone all my stuff migrates with minimal to zero problems. Buy an new phone, sign in and all my stuff downloads just like I expect it to. It does most of what I want without getting in my way. Not perfect but fine. The android phones I've used have been an irritation to put it mildly. Plus each vendor does it differently which has no benefit to me. Getting my stuff from one phone to another is a crapshoot, especially if I change vendors. There are some things I like from certain vendors but it's hard to trust that it will remain consistent over time. Plus Android devices too often never get updates which again is of no benefit to me.
I respect that some people want some features Apple doesn't offer (replaceable batteries, SD storage, etc) or that they don't like the interface or the company. No product is perfect for everyone. But personally I want a nice but relatively simple device for the one I carry around everywhere. So far Apple has fit my needs the best. I'd drop them in a heartbeat if that were to change but so far it's been fine.
Google initially built its reputation by offering vanilla Android at affordable prices and that made Nexus 4 and 5 hugely popular devices.
Then for some reasons they decided to compete with Samsung and other big players by offering the largely insipid (in terms of features) Nexus 6 and it's not like this phone tanked, but it was several times less popular than the preceding Nexuses.
With the Nexus 5x and 6p Google seemingly lost the remainder of common sense by offering them at the prices comparable to first tier smartphones like Galaxy S6 or Note 5.
Perhaps Google needs to return to its roots instead of offering barebone phones (no SD slot, no removable battery, no dual sim support, very basic camera setup) for very high prices, since we already have companies which out-android'ed Google: I'm talking about ZTE Axon 7 and OnePlus 3.
Google is a well known brand, but has Google ever made something other than the search engine that people are proud to have and use? As far as I can tell, Android is a negative brand: It's defined by the things it doesn't do, i.e. lock you into a walled garden.
I prefer Android to Apple. Both do a good job and there's not really much difference but I do prefer Android.
Google has lots of products I use. Gmail, Google Maps, Google Voice, Google Drive, Google Photos, Google Labotomy
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
It's entirely possible that I'm misunderstanding Google's strategy here, but if the summary is correct (the summary contains the vast majority of the article, which, yes, I read), this is a profoundly idiotic move on Google's part. Not necessarily dropping the Nexus name, as that's very minor, but moving away from stock Android. One of the primary appeals of the Nexus was the complete and total lack of crapware.
I'm going to reserve final judgment until I see more of what Google is doing with its phone brand, as I have a hard time believing that Google's Android division is being run by morons.
There must be more to this than the story indicates.
.
The proposal under discussion on this thread has no benefit to mitigating those two problems that Android has.
Why is google putting Android security and upgrades in the low-priority queue?
I rooted my last HTC, (a Desire 510), but it was kind of a 'partial root'. It gave me root access, and I could do things like manipulate system files and run a firewall that requires root. But I couldn't delete crapps like Facebook, Twitter; or rather, I could, but they'd magically reappear after the next hard boot. I tried changing file permissions, and even set immutable, but a hard boot over-rode the perms and restored the original files. I needed to get the phone into "S-OFF" mode, but apparently that wasn't possible with that model. So I never really had full root priveleges.
It wouldn't surprise me in the least if Google's new HTC phones either couldn't be fully rooted, or couldn't be rooted at all - especially with Google's attitude getting worse and worse. I really wish Firefox and/or Ubuntu had managed to become viable alternatives to Android.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
When they came up with don't be evil, I think they meant it in good faith, it was naive and it was impossible, like pacts to be best friends forever, but at some level the people at the top there believed in this with respect to their muddled conception of evil.
So this is disappointing. Nexus was at the very least a huge bone to the tech community, and was pretty much the last man standing against a snowcrash vision of the mobile space. It was rooting friendly, and the majority of users kept it hooked into google services anyways.
So now yeah, they will end this because while a rooting friendly, stock android, top of the line, phone may be a service to the tech community or even to modern humanity itself, it isn't strictly in Google's interests so they will squash it. I am waiting for the day when all phones will be rooting hostile, and for the day that they get really good at enforcing that.
But in the grand scheme of things, maybe this is trivial in comparison to the evil that is silicon valley's increasing interest in using their gate-keeping positions to control/advance political/social narratives and affect elections.
With a new Blade Runner film, I wonder if the name change is partly to distance itself from that - the Nexus name is a homage to the android models in the film, after all. Or maybe it has just run its course, it becomes harder to have distinctive model names for consumers when you just name it after the screen size in inches.
Alternatively, it is probably part of some evil scheme for Google/Alphabet to spy on us and control our lives by adapting the information we encounter until we are just robotic slaves ready to do the corporation's evil bidding!!!!1!1!!! or something.
no miracast option
That's an Android-wide change. They removed that because they want you to use a Chromecast.
It was a joke. Yes, I meant Lobotomy.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Literally the only reason I recommend Nexus devices is because their security update policy is codified and public: monthly security updates for the life of the device (which is listed here: https://support.google.com/nex... ).
As long as they're still doing that, and keep the bootloader unlockable, the Nexus is still really the only smartphone worth owning. (Yes, Samsung currently does monthly security updates as well, but that's a matter of policy, not a promise to their customers; they could change their policy at any time.)
Are you some kind of Apple fanboy or something?
Yes, Google has made some other big winners: the two biggest ones are GMail and Google Maps. GMail's been going great for over 10 years now (though they pushed through a crappy UI change a while back, but everyone's been making crappy UIs now for some time, including Apple with their buttons that don't look like buttons), and Maps is unparalleled as a platform that provides both mapping, turn-by-turn navigation, plus a business directory, so I can do a search for "greek restaurant" in some unfamiliar city I'm in, find a place nearby, look at reviews to make sure I won't get food poisoning, and then have it navigate me there, all within one convenient app.
They also have Hangouts Dialer, which lets me make free VoIP calls, and a lot of people seem to like Google Voice.
They do have a serious problem with abandoning products, so don't make yourself too dependent on them if it's not one of their big flagship products (search, Gmail, Maps), since they do have a history of pulling the rug out.
As for Android being a "negative brand", that's just plain stupid. It has some serious flaws to be sure, but it's the *only* viable competitor to iPhone, which has gigantic problems of its own.
I feel like they're going for what they had when they owned Motorola. Basically stock Android with Google Apps and a few extras (like enhanced camera apps and the like.)
As long as they don't do things like bundle "special offers" as non-removable systems apps and continue with the Nexus update policy, I don't really see it as a problem. (New versions for at least 18 months, security updates for at least 36 months.)
Hopefully, this time, they won't sell it all to Lenovo.
Damn you! I have coffee all over my keyboard!
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
You know what I find "exciting" in a phone? Something that actually works. A phone that
- has good sounding transmit and receive audio,
- is mechanically sound so something stupid like a 10 cent power button doesn't make it a brick,
- has a decent viewable screen.
You can have your exciting "keeping up with the Samsungs" features, thank you very much. That's just chasing a feather in the wind.
slashdot: A failed experiment.
I have had three Google reference phones, and all have performed pretty well. I like having bone-stock vanilla Android A LOT, and it eventually let me to adopting Project Fi (which has been pretty good, altogether!). So, naturally, I'm a bit bummed that the days of reference Andriod phones are coming to an end. I hope that there's still some kind of Google-preferred offering to upgrade to when my Nexus 6 gets tired, with a reasonably stock flavor of ANdriod. Since Google is my cell provider, I'll just go to whatever they are pointing to. All the same, I can see how having to keep competitive in the handset space was probably not something they were prepared to do, so I understand it.
.. pa-ra-bo-la, pa-ra-bo-la, 2 pi R, 2 pi R, where's your latus rectum, where's your latus rectum, 2 pi R
It does appear that Google is abandoning all the things that made it so widely, if not universally, beloved. Letting their devs spend work time on passion projects. The dream of one day, however far in the future, ditching Comcast for Google Fiber. Phones and tablets that are, if not cruftware-free, at least set a minimum baseline for cruftware. They even pulled an Oracle with that Nest thing, buying an energetic indie startup and then almost immediately killing it dead for no real reason at all.
What the eff? Why is this all happening now? What's changed? Did they stop making All the Money? Are the founders going through menopause? Was Google secretly run by a group of elves whose spirit tree just died?
The only reason I didn't stick with Nexus after my 4, was the idiotic decision to place the power button, right under your index finger, where you're holding the phone. I'd say a good 80% of the times I turned that phone on or off were unintentional.
There aren't many phones that still place it on top, but that was pretty my only requirement for my next phone. Getting tired of all the different models pretty much just being clones of the same crappy design. A little variety would be nice.
They way Google is behaving is it any wonder that people are starting to mistrust their services and products? How can you rely on something when you know it's just a matter of time before they radically change or discontinue..
Have.. I mean, have you used any Samsung products lately? I own a Nexus 5, Nexus 6P, Samsung Galaxy S6, S7 and Note 7 (I do a lot of hardware testing). They are all rock solid, but the most rock solid is the S7 and Note 7. Without question, they are very well made devices, and stand up to a lot more than the Huawei 6P. The LG Nexus 5 is pretty solid, but there are problems especially with the power button (a problem that plagued older Samsung phones).
So when I see comments like this, I can only picture some luddite tightly gripping his Nexus 4 screaming about quality without ever having tried a new phone and just hating on it in principal.
I think this is a big opportunity for some of the up and coming brands to grab some market share.
I have a BLU Life One X and I am not sure how "vanilla" it is, but it's definitely not bloated. It's affordable ($150) has good specs, dual sim, and is unlocked.
Why would I want an iPhone or Nexus?
It's kind of a shame that people only think there are a couple of choices when it comes to phones.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
That's odd, all three of my nexus branded phones are still working fine - power buttons, usb ports, everything.
Maybe you've been unlucky or possibly it's a wetware issue.
Not lately, no. I've been Ludditely gripping my ancient Samsung Galaxy S2 because I've modded it to suit my needs, it works, and don't want to go through the pain of mastering a new phone unless it will be a game-changer for me. That's why I have to find reviews and evaluations that cut through the noise of shiny new features and get to the meat of the matter to find out if the phone works *as a phone* and can withstand daily use.
If I were to get something other than a Nexus it would be a Samsung based on the build quality of this S2 and reports from others over the different models they have put out.
But I will be doing plenty of research first to ensure that it suits my needs. I have not begun that search yet, but if Google releases their next iteration of the Nexus/Gphone this October (based on their historic pattern) I will have to begin that search in earnest.
Nexus is a brand, not a specific device. Google contracts with whatever manufacturer gives them what they want so any given model could be good or it could be crap, sure enough. My comments were not referring to any particular model, just pointing out what matters to me instead of breathlessly drooling over a new iPhone because it's an iPhone or a new Nexus just because it's a Nexus like so many do.
slashdot: A failed experiment.
I love the Nexus 5. I've literally thrown it at a rock before (Accidentally, if that makes sense) and concrete, no damage at all (Though I am using a rubber/plastic case).
The camera is a complete potato, but aside from that it still works perfectly. The camera is the only reason I would ever want to upgrade.
What the eff? Why is this all happening now? What's changed? Did they stop making All the Money? Are the founders going through menopause? Was Google secretly run by a group of elves whose spirit tree just died?
One word: monopoly.
Best way to avoid it, have proof of things you did that negated it, so you're not the DIRECT monopoly, but still bringing in buttloads of cash.
I had the Moto 3 for a few days finding it's battery was hard wired in. Sometimes you just need to pull the battery to fix an error. And it was very bare application wise, good thing not so much stuff you'll never use, bad thing as a simple bar code scanner is handy to have, and only the ones supplied by the manufacture (paid version) work well or at all.
5 Mpix selfi (second) camera, a bit over kill on that one, but I've always liked Motorola's products. The Xoom tablet was very nice and at 10.5" the perfect size.
My Moto3 wouldn't call out from my location and one can see the cell tower from here (not that it's the one used), and had to return it. Just before exchanging it I tried it one last time and it worked; but I didn't live in that city.
Motorola's ToS was very specific in that any info it collected would stay with them and not shared, I LOL'd, Motorola being owned by Google.
I think it's a bit early to call the S7 or Note 7 the most rock solid phones--when I talk about durability, I mean that over a 2-4 year period, and these've only been out a few months/weeks. You may yet be right, but I still think you might be jumping the gun a little.
Screw the focus on dropping the Nexus name. The name they should be dropping is YouTube Red. After all, no matter how their pointy haired folk try to spin it, it will always be easily confused with the already preexisting Redtube.
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Aaaaand now there's a global recall on every single one.