Will the N4 Get the GE Launcher and Transparent Nav Bars?

[Illustrator Joe]

OTAs for the Nexus 7's and 10 have began to roll out and it has been pretty much confirmed them don't share the exact experience that the Nexus 5 has. No transparent navigation bars and no GE Launcher. For me the nav bars are not a huge deal, while I think the transparent ones look a lot nicer than the old black bars on a tablet the little bit of screen real estate you will get with the transparent ones isn't that big of a deal. On the phones smaller screen on the other hand I think the transparent nav bars would be quite a bit more useful than on the tablets. The Google Experience launcher on the other hand would be great on a tablet (if optimized) and I am a little sad to not see it on the N7s and 10. That being said there are rumors of the GE launcher making its way to the Play Store, which IMO would be awesome and I really wouldn't have any gripes with the Kit Kat update if that were the case.

So what do you guys think?
-What are your feelings about the different Kit Kat experiences on the tablets and N5?
-Will the Nexus 4 get the Google Experience Launcher or Transparent Nav Bars?
-Will the Google Experience Launcher make its way to the Play Store?

 

[Citizen Coyote]

The Nexus 4 will not get the GE Launcher that the Nexus 5 has, at least not to begin with. We might see it as an update in the Play Store down the road, but for now Google has confirmed it's exclusive to the N5. However, that doesn't mean a whole lot as far as the transparency thing goes. As a mod pointed out in another thread, the transparency feature is simply a software call available to any app that requests it. Third party launchers like Nova Launcher are already playing with this in beta versions, so you will likely see that feature pop up very soon in the public release versions.

This does signal a departure from the norm for the Nexus program in my eyes, though. The Nexus 5 is no longer the "pure Android phone." It's now Google's phone, which is a subtle but distinct difference. We can no longer look at the latest Nexus device, running the newest version of Android, and think, "Wow, I can't wait to get Feature X on my older Nexus device!" From now on, we'll have to look at the feature list of the next version of Android and hunt for the asterisks indicating exclusivity.