I know, I know. It’s the day of the Google I/O keynote and one of two things is going to happen, you’re as die-hard as we are and you’ll have read this before the keynote or you’ve somehow waded through all the news to find this piece. Whichever it is, I’d like to take some time – not a lot, don’t panic, I know it’s a big day – to go into Jelly Bean and the Nexus S. Specifically why Google would be crazy not to update the phone.
The Nexus program hasn’t fared all that well in recent memory sure, the Galaxy nexus is an awesome phone and still stands tall next to the One Xs and SIIIs of the world but, if you’re on Verizion specifically you know what a pain in the ass getting the latest build is. It’s not all that different for Nexus users on Sprint either, with the Nexus S having to wait quite a bit longer than the GSM variant to get their fix of Ice Cream Sandwich.
My Nexus S means a lot to me, yeah, its just a phone but, with Android a phone is really just a vessel up to a point. This vessel happens to be a good looking, well-sized and weighted phone and yes, it’s getting on a bit now but, that doesn’t stop it from being a capable device. It runs Ice Cream Sandwich well and I’ve experienced no problems with Android 4.0 here at all. Of course I’m going to upgrade! I’d be crazy not to but, the Galaxy Nexus just didn’t do it for me in my eyes it was an incremental update, I’m sure its more than that but, I let that train leave the station, I can wait for the next, faster and more comfortable train.
If Google don’t update the Nexus S to Jelly Bean then they’d be absolutely insane. They have no excuse quite frankly, from all that we can tell Jelly Bean is a minor update, the kind of update that tweaks and polishes, rather than a change-all update like Ice Cream Sandwich was. Meaning that the Nexus S is going to run Jelly Bean just fine, with or without Google’s explicit support. In the wake of the Nokia Lumia not getting Windows Phone 8 fiasco and Apple cutting iOS 6 for the iPhone 4, this is Google’s chance to stand up and show the naysayers that Android upgrades are just fine and that fragmentation is not only a dirty word but hardly true.
That up there in the picture is my desk, my Nexus and if it doesn’t get an OTA from Google carrying a big basket of Jelly Beans at some point then I’ll not only be a little upset but I’ll also have lost a little bit more faith in the Nexus program.
Who’re kidding though, we all know this thing’ll have an AOSP build of Jelly Bean, along with all the other phones out there that their manufacturers forgot about. Like the Xperia Play, right Sony?