We’re probably still months away from Google announcing new Nexus phones, but the new Nexus rumor mill has officially starting churning.
Evan Blass says that HTC is working with Google on two new Android N devices, known internally M1 and S1. Just in case that’s not enough to make you think that HTC is working on Nexus devices, though, Blass also included #nexus in his tweet.
HTC is building a pair of Android N devices for Google internally dubbed M1 and S1 #nexus
— Evan Blass (@evleaks) April 27, 2016
No details about these HTC Nexus devices are known, but the folks at Android Police suggest that their codenames could be Marlin and Sailfish. Nexus devices typically have fishy codenames, and so these names would continue that tradition. And while AP isn’t sharing the direct evidence it has to support these names, it does point to an entry in AOSP code review tool Gerrit. The entry is posted by a Qualcomm engineer and reads “Can you please review this change so we can bring this in for Marlin?”.
HTC is a veteran of the Nexus program, having created both the original Nexus device — the Nexus One — as well as the Nexus 9 tablet. It remains to be seen what kind of devices M1 and S1 are, but it’s likely that at least one is a phone. Will Google go with a two Nexus phone approach again this year and task HTC with building both, or will HTC make one Nexus phone and one Nexus tablet for this year? We’ll just have to wait and see, but it’s starting to look like 2016 could be the year that HTC returns to the Nexus program.
Would you like to see new Nexus hardware from HTC this year or is there another manufacturer you want a new Nexus phone from?
