Galaxy Nexus Won't Get Android 4.4 KitKat
Google has said those with the Galaxy Nexus won't get Android 4.4.
Today was a good day for Android fans. Unfortunately, those of you with a Galaxy Nexus can kiss your KitKat flavored dreams goodbye. Google has confirmed that the less than two-year-old phone won't be getting Android 4.4.
Engadget points to Google's Nexus support pages, which state that the Galaxy Nexus won't be getting the newest breed of Android. Oddly enough, this isn't just a case of the Galaxy Nexus's name being left off the list of devices that will receive the update. Instead, Google goes out of its way to single out the Galaxy Nexus.
Google, as far as we can tell, doesn't have minimum hardware requirements for Android 4.4. Even so, the company made a big deal about the fact that KitKat can run comfortably on 512 MB of RAM and the Galaxy Nexus has twice that. Of course, you could always get around this sad fact by rooting your device and running a custom Android 4.4 ROM. If you don't want to do that and desperately want KitKat, there isn't much you can do beyond buying a new phone. Unless you want KitKats of the chocolate variety. You can still buy those, no matter what phone you have. You could probably get a great deal on them tomorrow, too.
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Besides, there will be more 4.4-based ROMs out there than you could shake a stick at (sic!).
"It's Google, so I'm giving them a pass."
Yes, it will. It's called Cyanogenmod (or any other custom distro) and everyone who's using it couldn't give less of a damn about Google's/carrier's/manufacturer's update policy. Why do we tolerate such BS on phones? Imagine MS saying you can't install Windows 7/8 on your 2-year-old PC the hardware of which is perfectly capable of handling it? Go install Cyanogenmod or other distro ASAP and forget about this nonsense update drama, I'm running Android 4.3 on my SGS1 and it's awesome.
What?
This would be a nice update for a phone with hdmi output though which, I'll admit, I have no idea whether the Nexus has. I like the direction this is going though - tiny little devices that can act as a media hub plugged into a much larger system.
"It's Google, so I'm giving them a pass."
Heh, no kidding. But that's the way of it - Google gets away with stuff like this while other companies get crucified for similar things - both Windows Phone and Apple have been raked through the coals over lack of back support for some of their updates. They're the "cool kid" in the school right now and, it seems, will continue to be so.
That's actually the first thing I thought of when I read this headline. This phone's TI CPU is probably why it'll have a shorter-than-usual shelf-life, it already cannot run a lot of the newer apps and benchmarks.
So could you please explain to me how come only the maguro variant of the Galaxy Nexus got updated to 4.3, while all other variants got stuck at 4.2.
The same thing also happened to the Nexus One and the Nexus S.
I bought a Nexus phone because I wanted to stay up on the OS - and that's the only reason I chose it. So why would I choose another Nexus now? Google has broken the promise, broken that social contract with me, so how can I trust them going forward?
Yes, I know that they actually dumped the update responsibility with the Galaxy Nexus on Samsung (at least here in Canada), but that is not an excuse and it definitely isn't a reason.
I would have considered the Nexus 5 before, but now, why bother. They may decide not to include it when Android 4.5 comes out.