Remember that Moto X+1 prototype that surfaced yesterday? The images piqued the interest of many a mobile fan, but just in case you weren’t intrigued by the shots, the rumor mill has produced another Motorola rumor that you may want to be aware of.
A report from Android Police claims that Motorola is currently collaborating on a new device with Google that’s codenamed “Shamu.” The handset is supposedly targeted at the major U.S. carriers as well as other parts of the globe, and it’s expected to feature a beefy 5.9-inch display as well as a fingerprint sensor. The current release window for Shamu is November.
There’s not a ton of hard evidence to support Shamu’s existence, but the image you see below does seem to back up this rumor. That screenshot from Google’s issue tracker, and as you can see at the bottom of the original report, this bug includes a reference to a product with the name “Shamu.”
It’s also suggested that Shamu could be a Nexus-class device. This theory is supported by the original source’s mention of it in the same breath as that HTC Volantis tablet, the fact that Shamu is running a Google kernel and that Google is known for codenaming its Nexus devices after fish (those include “hammerhead” for the Nexus 5 and “maguro” for the GSM Galaxy Nexus). Finally, Android Police notes that the bug you see in the screenshot above was reported by a company named Spirent Communications, which exists in order to products for errors.
While some recent rumors have suggested that a new program dubbed Android Silver will replace Google’s Nexus offerings, a Google employee has suggested that that’s not necessarily the case. A Nexus smartphone collaboration with Motorola could make sense after Google gave LG the last two cracks at a Nexus phone and the fact that Google owned Motorola for a while there. Of course, this is all still very much unconfirmed, but with Android L scheduled to make its public debut in the fall, we may only have a few more months before all is revealed.
Would you be interested in a Motorola-made Nexus smartphone with a 5.9-inch display?
Via Android Police
