Now this is pretty weird, but it appears that the Factory images and binaries for the Nexus 4 have disappeared from the Google developers site. Not only did the image for Android 4.2.1 disappear, but everything for the Nexus 4. If you take a look at the Google Developers site you’ll see the Nexus 10, Nexus 7, Nexus Q, Galaxy Nexus, and the Nexus S. But nothing at all for the Nexus 4. It’s pretty surprising to say the least.
For those that don’t know what the factory images are, they allow you to restore your phone back to what it was when you first got it. So if you’ve flashed any ROMs, kernels, or radios, it over writes them to bring it back to completely stock. Now that these images are gone from Google’s site it’ll be a bit harder to get your device back to stock. But probably not to hard. As I’m sure many developers and crack flashers have a copy of the factory image and binaries some where that can be uploaded to Dropbox, Google Drive or something similar for the rest of us to use in the mean time.
Many people are thinking that the reason why only the Nexus 4 files were taken down is that Google is planning on patching that whole LTE mess that the Nexus 4 has been a part of. Where it actually has LTE, and it can be accessed and activated simply by going into a hidden menu. Even though LTE only works on Band 4 (AWS) on the Nexus 4. But it’s not documented and not approved by regulators. And because this LTE is unlicensed, Google may have removed the images so they can quickly patch them and get Android 4.2.2 up to keep the FCC and others happy about the while Nexus 4 and LTE thing.
We have no idea what exactly is going on, but hopefully these images and binaries will return to the site soon. But like we always do, we’ll keep you updated on this if we learn anything more.
Source: Nexus Factory Images