Google Now is reportedly being pre-loaded on future ZTE devices

As you might have heard, earlier this year, Google placed their Google Now launcher in the Google Play Store, but unfortunately the download was pretty much only available to Nexus owners and those who have Google Play Edition devices. This meant that if you had non-Nexus or non-GPE handset, you’d be out of luck. Interestingly enough, it seems that Google could be relaxing on those rules as ZTE has announced that they will be preloading the Google Now launcher on some of their upcoming phones, namely the ZTE Blade Vec 4G and another ZTE premium device which the company will be officially announcing in Hong Kong on the 24th of July.

Ever since Google added the Google Now Launcher to the Play Store in February, it’s only made the app available to Nexus and Google Play edition phones running Android 4.4 or higher. That’ll soon change, though, as a major manufacturer has adopted Google’s launcher. ZTE announced today that it plans to preload the Google Now Launcher onto “several” of its devices. To be more specific, ZTE plans to load the GNL on all of its Android 4.4 devices that have Google Mobile Services and Google Play. This move makes allows ZTE to offer some of the first non-Nexus, non-GPe products with official access to the GNL. The first ZTE device to come with the Google Now Launcher preinstalled will be the ZTE Blade Vec 4G, which will launch in Hong Kong on July 24. The Blade Vec 4G features a Snapdragon 400 processor, 3G and 4G LTE connectivity and Android 4.4 KitKat. The Google Now Launcher is a clean, easy-to-use app that gives quick access to voice search and Google Now. It’s kind of a bummer that it’s not available to all Android phones, but it’s great to see that ZTE has partnered with Google to preload the GNL on its devices. This will make ZTE’s products more attractive to the vanilla Android fans and should also make them easier to update, which is good news for consumers.