Nexus Line Rumored To Step Aside For ‘Android Silver’
Android may find itself a flagship ecosystem outside the offerings of the Nexus and Google Play Edition devices in Android Silver. Google is said to be working on a new initiative to focus on maintaining a high-end stock Android experience for top-tier devices. Android has long suffered from fragmentation through poorly supported forks of stock Android elements and other OEM software.
As opposed to the Nexus line, Android Silver would be more of a specification for hardware manufacturers than a direct Google product. Google no doubt hopes to offer a better user experience, avoiding bloatware and ensuring Nexus-level updates and support. Samsung, HTC, Motorola, and Sony have all released Google Play Edition devices, with each well received by the market. Sony in particularly accredits recent quarterly earnings to their smartphone division with the Z Ultra Google Play Edition recently dropping $200 cheaper than it’s launch price. Samsung also seems to be enjoying the performance of their S4 GPE, with a leak just surfacing on a potential release of an S5 GPE.
Unification of software would benefit developers as well as users. One of the reasons that Apple’s offerings flourish is the ease for developers to produce software for a multitude of devices with few, if any, coding changes. Bringing solidarity to Android across flagship devices. Though the large span of available hardware is obviously a larger part of that diversity, with the potential for a larger install base adhering to Google’s specification, developers would have a pool of devices more accurately representing a target platform and find themselves with less software conflictions.
If Android Silver were to reign in the release of Android 5 across a range of well supported devices like the current Google Play Edition lineup (between quality budget builds like the Moto G up through HTC’s and Samsung’s high profile devices) it may be a killer year for Google, phone manufacturers, and Android enthusiasts.