Motorola is reportedly working on a 5.9-inch Nexus phone

We’ve heard rumor and counter-rumor about whether Google’s Nexus program has a future, but some digging by Android Police has uncovered a Motorola handset that could be the Nexus 6. According to the information obtained by Android Police, the device has a 5.9-inch display, sports a fingerprint sensor, and is slated to appear just after the iPhone 6. Many of the whispers make sense — we know that Google and Motorola have a close working relationship, even after the two companies parted ways at the start of this year, and sources from inside LG have said the firm will not be building the next Nexus-branded phone. If Google does indeed want a Nexus 6 to challenge the next edition of the Apple iPhone, Motorola would be an obvious choice for a hardware partner.

There’s been a lot of confusion lately over the fate of Google’s Nexus program. Rumors swirled, after LG’s planned Nexus was canceled (and laterdenied entirely), that the program was dead in favor of an upcoming Android Silver initiative. With the revelation that HTC is working on a 9″ tablet device (code named Volantis), it seemed the Nexus program had at least one more device in store – expected to launch with Android’s L release this fall. Then, during an interview at Google I/O, Dave Burke appeared to confirm that Google was still invested in the Nexus program, suggesting there might be another Nexus phone coming after all. We’ve also been seeing plenty of rumors concerning Motorola’s efforts with the “X+1” phone – including full-on hardware shots of a device suspected to be the phone. What we didn’t expect, however, was that Motorola may be working on another device – for now code named Shamu, that may indeed be a Nexus phone. We’ve received information suggesting this is the case, with just a few additional details. Given the fact that this is a hardware rumor, we’re going to treat it like other rumor posts, assigning it a confidence rating before breaking down what exactly we’ve been told.