Russian blogger Eldar Murtazin said on Twitter that the Nexus line of devices will be discontinued in 2015, replaced instead with a new brand spawned from the current Play Edition family. Google has launched various Play Edition devices this year, including the HTC One, the Samsung Galaxy S4, the LG G Pad 8.3, the Sony Z Ultra and the Motorola Moto G. Essentially these devices run a pure version of Android, with no OEM user interface and bloatware on top. However, these devices aren’t updated directly by Google, but by OEMs, meaning that new Android OS versions first reach Nexus devices, and only later Google Play Edition devices.
Murtazin has not detailed where he received his information from but said in following tweets that new Nexus devices are expected for this year. While the blogger has been accurate with mobile predictions in the past, he has also been wrong before. Interestingly though, Nexus smartphones and tablets may be on a name collision course for 2015, when a Nexus 7 (2015) tablet may be simultaneously launched with a Nexus 7 smartphone – that’s assuming Google’s current naming patterns for its Nexus smartphones and tablets would be kept in place, and that the company would continue to make 7-inch tablets of its own.
In addition to talking about the death of the Nexus family life, Murtazin has tweeted several other bits of information, most of them related to the newly inked Google Samsung cross-licensing patent deal. The blogger said that Samsung will not only get patents for Google, but it will also secure hardware development, hinting that more Google Play Edition Samsung handsets may hit the Google Play Store in the future.
Furthermore, he added that Samsung will stop developing Tizen for smartphones in the future, a decision that it has reportedly taken without being influenced by Google. The blogger also said that TouchWiz will evolve in extra features, that will “be an integral part of future Android versions,” which “others” will pay for – it’s not clear whether he meant that other OEMs will pay to use Samsung TouchWiz features or whether users will have to pay to access some of these features.
Murtazin also said that Google will not be competing against Samsung or any other brand in hardware, and that the company is considering reprofiling Motorola in the future. Finally, Android will be somewhat restricted from use by some companies including Microsoft, which may mean that even if other companies will fork Android, they may not get access to Google’s apps including Google Play Store.
Just like with the Nexus tweet, the blogger did not reveal where he got his information regarding the Google Samsung deal.
