Ever since LG launched the Nexus 4 on behalf of Google, the mobile world has been buzzing about who the next Google Edition handset would be produced by. Samsung and HTC have both also had a crack at producing a Nexus handset in the past, albeit with mixed results.
It seems that change may be on the cards with two seperate stories this week of HTC and Google launching existing handsets as ‘Google Edition’ – The Samsung Galaxy S4 and the HTC One.
Paul O’Brien of MoDaCo reported the change in strategy on Friday, with multiple sources saying the phone would be announced next week. Like Samsung’s Galaxy S 4 “Google Edition”, announced last week at Google I/O, the HTC One would lose HTC’s Sense software and run a plain, or stock, version of Android. This would be akin to the Nexus 4 phone, which Google sells directly through Google Play.
So what’s the difference? Well quite simply – it’s software. All Android handsets are released with a stock version of Android but customised by the manufacturer. Samsung in the past have integrated ‘TouchWiz’, HTC have integrated ‘Sense’. These add customisations by the maufacturer to give access to their own products and services. Google Edition on the other hand is quite simply as Android was intended to be used and seen.
I for one would be very excited to see a HTC One without all that extra HTC stuff that only realisticaly glogs up the RAM and slows the handset down. Going pedigree Android would be much more my cup of tea – that is if you can ever tear me away from my Jailbroken iPhone 5!
