With all the rumors about the Motorola X phone, some of us thought that Google would at least be announcing it at Google I/O, even if they weren’t going to launch it right away. But Google’s CFO has just said that we shouldn’t expect the upcoming Motorola devices to “wow” us, as some of the Google products have done it lately.
This means that the mythical X phone might not arrive right now, and it might not even arrive this year. The CFO also said that Motorola is still going to keep releasing the phones they were already having in the pipeline, before Google acquired them:
“The case with Motorola is that we’ve inherited a pipeline,” Pichette said, “Motorola has a great set of products, but they’re not really like “wow” by Google standards. Dennis Woodside and his team have inherited 18 months of pipeline that we have to drain right now.”
Google acquired Motorola less than a year ago, so that means there are still quite a few months to go. It’s possible that they might launch it in fall, together with Android 5.1, but then what about the Nexus device? Or is the upcoming Nexus phone just going to be made by Motorola, instead of someone like HTC?
If they both launch in the same time, that could be pretty messy for Google, as they would have to promote both the Motorola device and the Nexus one. It would’ve been a lot easier if they were launching the Motorola X phone (and possibly even a Motorola X tablet) at Google I/O with the all-new Android 5.0 (next year with 6.0, and so on) and the Nexus device in fall, as always, with Android 5.1 (then Android 6.1 in 2014, and so on) – or even the other way around: Nexus phone at Google I/O and the Motorola phones for the holiday season.
Launching them in the same time doesn’t look right – unless the Motorola phone is the Nexus device this year. But then, does that mean the next Nexus device won’t “wow” us as much as it could’ve, since Google has just said these are devices from Motorola’s old pipeline. This also means we might not see a Nexus or Nexus-like smartphone at Google I/O, and perhaps all we’ll get to see there is a Nexus tablet (or two), and a Chromebook.
[Via Droid-Life]