Well this really doesn’t matter to many of you since no one really has a Nexus 5 just yet. But Google has posted the factory image for the Nexus 5 aka Hammerhead. This comes just a few hours after Google began uploading the KitKat code into AOSP. Google’s Ed Heyl announced it in the Android Building Google Group earlier today. There are actually two branches in AOSP right now:
kitkat-dev for kitkat open source contributions
kitkat-release the kitkat release build (KRT16M) for the Nexus 5–which will be tagged with android-4.4_r1.
The factory image for Hammerhead is available right now. Along with the binaries. Now this doesn’t matter to most of us, but what it does mean is we may be able to grab wallpapers, apks and more from the factory image. Hopefully someone will grab the Hangouts APK soon! That’s definitely something I’d love to get my hands on with all the new features they’ve packed inside that one.
Now for those that have purchased a Nexus 5 or are planning on purchasing one, this is a big deal. Why? Custom ROMs. Also if you want to do a factory reset, you can. As with many other Nexus devices we’ve had in the past, I expect this one to have plenty of ROMs. I know with the Nexus 4 a lot of people were building ROMs without the actual device in hand, and I expect that to happen again, since they have all the code they need right here.
So who’s ready to start checking out some custom ROMs and kernels for the Nexus 5? I certainly can’t wait to see what our favorite ROM developers come up with the for the Nexus 5 this year. I’m sure we’ll see Paranoid Android out there first, or at least one of the first. I”m not so sure about CyanogenMod. But hopefully we get factory images for other Nexus devices in the next few days.