Google is rumoured to be planning to retire its Nexus smartphone and tablet brand in favour of the Google Play Edition moniker currently exclusive to its third-party hardware partners.
Google's original Nexus handset, the Nexus One, was announced back in 2010 as the company's first own-brand handset. Built by hardware partner HTC, the device sold well but landed Google in hot water with the estate of Philip K. Dick following claims the naming convention was 'inspired' by the Nexus 6 androids of Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep - which would become the replicants of classic sci-fi film Blade Runner.
That didn't prevent Google from keeping the Nexus name, however, and since then all its own devices have used the branding. Recently, Google's hardware partners including HTC and Samsung have started releasing competing handsets, by replacing customised Android versions found on the HTC One and Galaxy S4 with the same stock Android operating system found on a Nexus. These are differentiated from their standard edition counterparts with the suffix 'Google Play Edition' - and it has now emerged that Google may be looking to move its own hardware under the same umbrella.
According to journalist Eldar Murtazin, Google will be phasing out the Nexus name this year with a view to replacing it with the Google Play Edition suffix - although Murtazin says it may choose a different naming convention altogether, for both its own handsets and those of its hardware partners. The move would remove the divide between the devices Google is consulted on and those its hardware partners have developed themselves, while still keeping the promise of a pure and unmodified Android experience.
Google has not yet commented on Murtazin's claims that the devices launched this year will be the last to use the Nexus brand.
