I’ve spent the past couple of days desperately trying to puzzle out the purpose behind Google’s newly announced Nexus 5X and 6P smartphones. Unlike predecessors such as the Nexus One and Nexus 5, these phones don’t have a clear reason for being, and are not in themselves terribly unique. That’s led me (and others) to question Google’s overall aim with the Nexus line of pure Android smartphones, and I think I’ve finally arrived at an answer. The Nexus program is not so much about carrier independence or purity of Android design as it is about presenting Google in an overwhelmingly positive light. In other words, Google, the ultimate ad seller, sells Nexus phones as ads for itself.
This article feels a bit like a trainwreck to me. It just doesn’t make any sense. Of course Nexus devices are built specifically to put Android and Google’s services on a pedestal – has anyone ever claimed otherwise? Has anyone ever seen them as anything but? The tone of the article also tries to somehow posit this as a negative thing, which I don’t understand either. Some of the very best Android phones of all time have been Nexus phones, so aren’t they a great thing for us consumers? What’s the problem here?
Making Android profitable for Android phone makers is one of the great challenges of our time. We’re all better off when we buy things from sustainable companies that we know will still be around when we have an issue months or years down the line. I wish Google would recognize that and try to do more to support Android as a whole rather than just its own good name. Nexus devices have in the past and can still serve nobler purposes than just making Google look good.
No, it’s not. The goal of Android is to reach as many people as possible, and do so in a way that benefits us as consumers as much as possible. Expensive Android devices with 50% profit margins don’t benefit us at all – they just allow major corporations to suck money out the economy and shadily funnel it to foreign tax havens. We benefit from access to high-quality phones at reasonable prices running Android-proper – and anything that pushes the Samsungs and HTCs of this world to do so is a huge win for consumers.
I’ve only ever owned Google’s Nexus phones, starting with the Nexus One. I like them because they’re unlocked and run pure unadulterated Android. They also receive updates directly from Google which means they’re always running the latest version of Android. Let’s face it, Google is an ad company. I think anyone who uses Android inherently knows that. I would much rather pay more at the outset for an authentic Android phone with software that’s maintained by Google than another device whose updates are at the mercy of carriers and device makers whose ulterior motives move them to modify Android to the point where their versions are often several times larger in terms of MB than pure Android due to all the baked in bloatware and which make them harder to update due to carrier and phone maker’s lack of resources leaving such phones abandoned after a certain period of time. As a Nexus 5 owner due for an upgrade, I’m anxiously awaiting my shiny new Nexus 6P and everything it entails.
it’s an ad phone, no point in saying android.
it’s amazing that the linux crowd that created android has stuck around through google ownership. there’s nothing at all “open” about google’s constant selling of your online doings for profit.
Android has nothing to do with that.
I’ve now had 3 Android phones – NexusOne, MotoX, and a MotoG. All three are hooked into my Google account b/c I find the functionality useful – namely, I actually use G+ and other related services that use the Google account. But that’s no different from my laptop, tablet, or other devices.
My NexusOne got flashed to Cyanogenmod 7; I still put the Google stuff on it because it’s useful, but I didn’t have to.
So no, the phone line is not about advertising as the article and GP stipulate. It’s about having a platform on which other services to be built on – services which may be for or are a component of advertising.
The fallacy that the article makes is that they are trying (desperately) to make the same link between Android and Google as there is between Windows and Microsoft. The problem is that for Microsoft, Windows was the main driver of everything else they did – IOW, they were dependent upon it.
Not so with Google, which is primarily dependent on the user having a good Web experience, not on any given platform. You see this in that Google’s stuff is not tied to Android. If you want Google Maps, you can get them – on Windows, iOS, Mac, Linux, Android, ChromeOS, etc; even on every Internet capable hobby and research OS out there (Haiku, Plan9, etc).
And that’s where the comparison breaks down – Microsoft’s products typically only run on their Windows platform. Only in the last year have they really started allowing their main product (f.e Office) to operate on iOS and Android; it was on Mac only due to the 1997/1998 agreement Microsoft had with Apple.
Actually Excel was originally developed on Macs.
True; but they nearly took it off in 1997/1998 when it was even announced that they would no longer be providing Office for the Mac. A later backroom deal between Jobs and Gates secured a contract between Apple and Microsoft for the continued production by Microsoft of Office for Mac.
I still feel like that deal has to irritate Microsoft guys that were around. They made the deal ( cash infusion into Apple & office support), to try and make it seem to the antitrust courts that they had competition.
I don’t think in their wildest dreams at the time that Apple would rebound to the extent that it did. Knowing Microsoft’s leadership at the time, I’m sure part of them wanted to kill them off when they had the chance.
Aren’t you a least a little bit concerned about how much information Alphabet has on you? How much major advertisers have on you?
How private is your life from Alphabet?
They probably know all the sites you visit, the phone numbers you call, etc ,etc ,etc.
If you are prepared to give everything to them by all means carry of using your google phones.
I’ve stopped using Google.com unless it is via an anonymizing proxy. Other than that, Alphabet/Google can whistle for any data about me.
IMHO we should all take our privacy more seriously so giving the Ad Factory all that lovely jubbly data is as far as I’m concerned madness. But you have a choice so carry on and ‘Welcome to the Machine’
As if there were any good alternatives. Besides, as long as you have a phone in the first place you’re setting yourself up for tracking. Using credit/debit cards, too.
So my whole motive to moving to a smart phone was to be able to have backups that I controlled – backups of my contacts to my own gmail account, which I already had. I had already replaced one cell phone and gone through the PITA to move my contacts over. I’ve since had 3 androids and moving between them – even reverting back to an older one temporarily – was nearly seamless. IOW, my motive to going to a smart phone proved good, smart, and working as intended.
There is nothing in my smart phone – aside from possibly Google Maps – that reveals anything that Google (among others) does not already have.
So, no I’m not worried. I’m far more concerned with government overreach than Google’s.
Do you know whats worse than Google using your data to display ads? People who constantly whine about Google using your data to display ads. It’s the new “Person who doesn’t have a television loudly telling everything how they don’t have a television” and it’s just ad boring, trite and irritating.
I know how Google work. I happily use Google services. I don’t care. Shut up.
Or maybe you should just follow a different blog.
OSAlert isn’t a blog, champ.
Except that a blog should be something associated to an individual, who is therefore free to express his/her own personal opinions on his/her own private space.
But OSAlert is no blog. It should represent a place where you go to stay objectively informed on all things OS- and IT-related.
Or, at least, that’s what it used to be…
You got a couple of negative responses when you shouldn’t have. I agree with your point here. For some reason, people seem to think that if you buy and use a product/service that it somehow means that you need to support the company 100%. It’s incomprehensible to me that so many could live in such a black and white world.
It’s ok to force change that benefits everyone. Android, and by extension, Google – can use positive change. We can insist and force AD companies to:
TRACK THE CONTENT, NOT THE USER
Tracking the user (surveillance, stalking, data-collection, data-warehousing) involves such a breach of civil liberties, 5th amendment rights, illegal search and seizure and so much more that a support for this kind of (illegal) behavior is a support for oppression (usually of the have-nots) and a splap in the face of all those who fought and died to protect the liberties we’re giving away.
Right now we have employers and real estate agents insisting on your facebook profile. In a couple of years, these same people will be insisting on the psychological profiles from collected data. Search terms deemed extreme, watch lists (akin to no fly list) based data collected will be the new norm. The warehoused data will be accessed even during a routine traffic stop.
This is already happening with the ‘share with trusted 3rd-parties’, with CISA, with the under-handed “we collect cookies on this site, so you agree to have your civil liberties violated” pop-up screens.
These offended tech users blindly protecting Big Business, happy with their fart apps and shiny new icons can keep proudly sipping on the koolaid of the day. They were braindead the moment they walked in the door.
Er? What facebook profile?
If anyone asks for mine they will get a very short answer simply because I refuse to have one.
Even if you had one what is stopping you from lying? After all they really have no compelling need to have that sort of personal information on you.
I think the only responsible answer to this post is this:
No. You’re using important, heavy concepts in a really cheap way that demeans and devalues their very meaning. Just stop.
You mean how Apple nobbers are all over the iPhone? You mean how the Apple has just one vanilla product, not allowing any mods to it to make it unique to the company or user? Yeah, go polish that Nazi apple brand on the back a bit more. They use the Nexus as a baseline for users to see the possibilities of the software, not force the “our way or the highway” choice you seem to shoot your ropes for.
As I’ve said all along… stop linking to The Verge articles. It’s just a bunch of kids with zero insight.
When I noticed it was a Verge article, the moral signalling nature of it became clear.
Wow, that’s a new low for The Verge.
Nexus Phones still today address many of the shortcomings of other Android phones. Google’s strategy is to lead by example, not by forcing Android vendors to follow.
And that “oh no, we must increase profits for Android makers” is just plain dumb. Most Android makers are profitable, contrary to what that article disingenuously claims. HTC and Sony aren’t, so what? They will go away if they can’t become profitable, and their business will go to Lenovo, Xiaomi and Huawei instead.
I’m still using a Nexus 4 and happy with it.
I remember that in the past I used to have a couple of Samsung cheap phone which it really sucked and you were forced to put a custom ROMs on it to have Android updates.
A Nexus Phone it simplify my life, I don’t even need to root or change it ROM.
So, that article is bull…
Yes. Everything Thom said makes sense.
But, also the author was making the point of Android device and OEM behavior improvement. That Nexus was a beacon forward for manufacturers to follow. With all major and some minor oems making better devices with less screwed with android versions at better price points sold without contract, but compatible with multiple carriers, Nexus has achieved part of its original goal. That’s kind of worth celebrating too.
Edited 2015-10-02 21:22 UTC
I’ve stopped reading The Verge when their chief editor at the time has written an article about who would win the fight between Batman and Superman.
First of all, The Verge editors live in and represent a little, lacquered, rarefied world somewhere far from what I’d call “reality”. The annoying pretence and affectation of the very pictures you can find on their site is just a symbol of their wanton religion – aesthetics as ethics. So I don’t really think they can be remotely trusted, especially when they write about Apple or Android.
Their iPhone reviews always say “This year’s iPhone is the best iPhone ever made” as if such a sentence made any sense at all. I find them insulting to intelligence. Their self-referentiality is only second to Apple’s.
Ok, on to my rant.
The goal of Android is to reach as many people as possible, and do so in a way that benefits us as consumers as much as possible.
Ugh. This sounds as ridiculously naive as can get. Please. The goal of Android is to benefit the customers? Yes, and it is the same thing Apple says of its products and services. Not a reason to believe them.
You know perfectly well that the goal of Android is ultimately providing revenue to Alphabet, Inc – anything else is just coincidental and there’s no need to sugar coat anything. I can’t believe I’m reading these words from a person who’s always cautioning about trusting corporations.
If anything Android can also be considered the main responsible for the lack of choice we have today wrt mobile systems – iOS, Android, or something-unsupported-that-is-going-to-die-because-devs-can’t-bother- writing-apps-for-it-so-no-reason-to-keep-it-alive.
I think saying that we have to thank Android for choice is anti-historical.
Edited 2015-10-02 21:26 UTC
From OUR perspective, it is – or at least it should be. I’m not talking from Google’s perspective, but ours.
Ok. It might be that my understanding of English is skewed by my Italian mother tongue, but I find it weird that – having no control over Android – we can think of Android having a goal from our perspective. I don’t believe a commercial product can be shape according to the projection of our desires.
If you mean something like “Our best interest is that Android reaches as many people as possible, and does so in a way that benefits us customers as much as possible”, in the sense that we hope so, then I can understand what you mean.
It’d be totally fair if they, you know, opted not to look foolish and sluggish by comparison. It’s not that hard, is it? Just slap Android on their device and optimize it for the hardware. How is that hard compared to what they’re doing now – slap Android on their device, slap on a horrid TouchPiss or (non)Sense UI with a f*ckton of useless widgets and Flipboard pages on top of that, and then waste time/resources pretending to optimize that blasted skin, and then waste more doing who know’s what.
I mean seriously, instead of releasing their own G4/5/6, LG could opt to develop a Nexus first for Google, and then use that exact same hardware within a flashier chassis (plus price markup) and market that as their own phone, unskinned and unbastardized on the software front. That way they could just hand over updates to Google, since it would essentially be a Nexus underneath anyway, right? All they’d have to do is spend effort marketing it to convince Joe Public in spending extra on their fancy finish – not that hard since most average Joes don’t even know Nexus devices exist. Is that so hard?
Yes, I’m oversimplifying, I realize, but the manufacturers have been overcomplicating things for years. Samsung goes on and on about how light their new TurdPiss skin is. Yeah right! It’s only light when compared to older TurdPiss versions, and that’s partially because the faster hardware is brute-forcing itself past the skin’s weight.
Edited 2015-10-02 22:05 UTC
Agree.
That’s why I’m a fan of Motorola’s current MO. It’s pretty much vanilla Android, timely updates, and no bloatware- just a few Moto apps that are genuinely useful. The issue I have with Nexus devices is lack of support for SD cards and USB-OTG- very useful if you want to transfer a few GB from one device to another, and a cheap way to expand storage.
Is that not what LG did with their nexus 4 and 5.use the same hardware and ship the g2,g3?
If I read this article some months ago, I would be perplexed as how any serious tech site could write something like that.
However, recently The Verge not only admitted they have “Apple Bias”, but also thinks it’s the right thing to do, since Apple’s products are the best thing since sliced bread and everything we have today is due to Apple and only Apple.
I am seriously considering stop reading them and looking for something else. Any good recommendations for a more interesting tech news site (besides here) ?
Why have you bothered with The Verge even this far? Anyways, I always recommend Anandtech and Ars Technica. They don’t serve exactly the same audience, so they complement one-another nicely.
Well, I generally welcome new Nexus releases, for the simple reason that they usually prove that good phones don’t have to cost a kidney. Is Android open enough, is Google an evil monopoly, etc., couldn’t care less. Android as an OS is good (and dev tools are great), Nexus hardware is also [mostly] good, at a [mostly] good price, so end of line.
The goal of Android is to reach as many people as possible, and do so in a way that benefits us as consumers as much as possible.
Android does not have a goal. It’s creators – Google – have a goal. To sell more targeted advertising by spying on its users.
Something I have found amusing recently, and especially with this article, is that quoted paragraphs look identical to non-quotes in the mobile version of OSAlert. On the mobile site the entire post is four same-looking paragraphs, which makes it look like Thom is arguing (sarcastically) with himself.
This makes many of the summaries both very confusing to read and pretty funny, when visiting OSAlert on my phone.
Lol, the article doesn’t take into account that in 2-3 years from now, PC companies like Lenovo (who are already experienced in playing the “how to make money from a heavily commoditized market” game) will make sure that the HTC’s, Sony’s and Samsung’s won’t have a reason to exist in smartphones and tablets (aka make them irrelevant). Even Huawei wears the “premium” label too proudly for what they offer to survive im the longterm.
LG may survive, because they can play the commoditization game too (after all they are a capable PC company) and because they might evolve in a long-time Nexus partner.
I’m leaning towards replacing my Nexus 4 with a Moto X Pure.
The only compelling advantage of the Nexus 5x is compatibility with Project Fi.
No wireless charging, small RAM, and no expandable storage are huge drawbacks. Wireless charging is essential. I don’t think my N4 would have survived this long if I was plugging a USB connector into it every day.
I’m facing the same decision – although I’ve connected my Nexus 4 for nightly recharge since I got it and never had an issue.
The X has a micro SD slot for cheap storage and a nicely embossed leather back, while the Nexi have fingerprint scanners for quick unlock and eventually (perhaps) Android Pay. I lean toward cheap storage at the moment. Feeling thrifty.
Then I’ll finally get around to loading Ubuntu Touch on my Nexus 4.
Check the display to make sure you will be happy with an IPS TFT LCD screen.
Some reviewers said it was perfectly OK, some were less than impressed.
Nexus 4, 5, 5x, and Moto X Pure (2015 ) all have IPS displays. I don’t want an AMOLED display.
In the end besides Nexus phones we will end up with cheap phones and tablets made by companies owned by the Chineese government which still takes money out of the economy and then applies it to a repressive regime.
It’s bad enough that everyone from Apple to LG makes their devices in China. But to have all the money go to China. That sucks!
Nearly all the money goes to Taiwan, Korea, Japan, USA etc because non-Chinese companies own virtually all the IP. The Chinese are little more than assemblers.
Unless you are either Chinese (in which case that wouldn’t be a bad thing) or non American (so you wouldn’t really care that much about which foreign country your money goes to).
While lower prices is all good, I doubt it has as easy for HTC.
One reason: Patents.
In the great patent wars they had to sign up to deals such as $20+ per handset to each patent entity.
Patents cost up to half the costs of a new phone.
I suspect that Originally the Nexus 6 was twice the price of earlier nexi because Google had stripped it of its patents and suddenly it had little protection from other patent entities’ rackets.
Google, now owning a large patent portfolio, can protect itself, but I wonder if that extends to companies like Huawei who make the new Nexus 6P
A few years ago Nexus was needed to define some standard form factors and introduce new display sizes or features like NFC or new concepts like the demise of hardware buttons – which I hate (on smartphones) and love (on tablets).
Now the case is that there is a plethora of devices to choose from that are quite close too Google’s guidelines. In my opinion Google was better off inviting hardware partners to join something similar to the “Play edition” program that was tried out about two years ago: Make Nexus editions of a few devices that are freshly out or soon to be released. Choose some price points like “One” (the 100^a'not range), “Entry” (200^a'not, like Moto G), Mid Range (350^a'not to 400^a'not) and “High End” (600 to 700^a'not). With this concept only “High end” (and partially midrange) would get all new features like finger print sensors while still be appealing to Android developers and people who prefer the vanilla Android experience the like.
This would also prevent long periods without updated Nexus phones. In fact the Nexus 5 was the least reliable Android hardware I ever owned. And between November 2013 and late October 2015 it was just too long. This could also help keeping the costs down for the hardware partners: Making the tooling and designing a phone for Nexus first now seems to be a big investment that is an approach rather taken when the image of the own brand as an Android vendor still has to be established.
“The goal of Android is to reach as many people as possible, and do so in a way that benefits us as consumers as much as possible.”
Biggest load of horse shit I’ve read in a loooong time (and I read the internets a lot).
The goal of Android is to make Google more money by bringing in more ad revenue! Google couldn’t give a shit about us consumers except as the source of their data used to sell ads that target us! Apple has one thing correct in that with Google, YOU are the product it’s selling to its advertisers.