Google’s Dave Burke has confirmed that the Nexus program will continue and a new Nexus flagship running Android L can be expected to launch later this year. There had been multiple reports in the past claiming that Google, in favor of the new Android Silver, will dump the company’s existing and successful Nexus program. However, thanks to Burke, who is the Head of Android Engineering and Nexus Program, we have a confirmation that the next Nexus device is coming later this year. Burke, in an interview with Readwrite, said, “People just get excited by concepts and forget why we do things. We are still invested in Nexus.” On being asked about existence of the Android Silver project, Burke told, “Android Silver is not something that we are commenting on right now. But the prospect of Silver doesn’t mean that Nexus is going away.”
Google’s Nexus line is not dead yet, according to Google’s Android engineering chief. “People have been commenting about Nexus because there is something else and they think that means the end of Nexus. That is the totally wrong conclusion to make,” Google’s Dave Burke told ReadWrite in a recent interview. Burke explained that when Google develops a new version of Android it develops a device with one of its partners right alongside it. “There are sort of two outputs…a Nexus device and…the open source code. There is no way you can build the open source code without the phone or tablet,” Burke said. The Android engineering chief’s comments appear to contradict a report by The Information in late April that said an initiative dubbed “Android Silver” would see the end of Google’s Nexus effort. Reports about Silver have always made it out to be a very different beast than the Nexus program, a view that Burke appeared to confirm. Burke wouldn’t talk about Silver, although he did seem to implicitly confirm its existence in his talk with ReadWrite. From earlier reports, however, it appears Silver will be a program to offer versions of high-end Android handsets running stock or near-stock Android installations,sans the custom interface tweaks created by device makers.
