The rumor I heard was the flagship status was going away and the nexus program was going to be a certification program that any manufacturer can get in on. Rumored devices were the xperia nexus, HTC nexus 5, LG Optimus Nexus, and the Samsung Galaxy Nexus 2, but already the rumored Galaxy Nexus 2 has been confirmed to not be a nexus at all but rather a touchwiz phone with some gnex parts.
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This "certification" to me doesn't make much sense. Why would Samsung even consider making a phone with stock when their touchwiz sales are doing so well? Its not like the Nexus name is premium outside of the Android fans. So what would make it special to be part of this program. Can't they just release a phone now with stock if they wanted to and not have to do with their skins.
The skins give them unique-ness and the ability to differentiate....if they all just make hardware than it'll be hard to sell one phone over the other and I'm almost positive Samsung doesn't want to go down that road right now with how well their sales are.
I don't buy the multiple Nexus devices argument either.....Google has hard enough time getting their Galaxy out there on networks and have good sales and you think they will drop 4 more phone options in there spending more money and more resources on keeping these things fully stock and updates on time? That would mean that there would be something like.....5 phones time 5(4 carriers plus unlocked)25 different phones to test during OS drops plus the current galaxy Nexus multiple different things.
It just doesn't make a lot of sense to me, but Google does a lot of things that don't make sense.(Nexus Q) I just don't see them accomplishing anything with 5 different devices, its competition with itself and Google may have the money to do it but I don't see it turning profitable and somewhat of a pointless venture to go down if you ask me.