Since Monday, many of us Nexus 4, 5, 7, and 10 owners have been avidly (and honestly unnecessarily) refreshing Google’s developer site. This place is the breeding ground and home to the famous Nexus factory images. Now, the Nexus Player has its factory image on the list of downloadable ones.
For those without a Nexus or the knowledge of what a factory image is, here’s the down-low. An android device comes with a stock, un-updated, untouched, un-logged-into Android OS. That changes when you first boot it up. The factory image is similar to, for you root-friendly folks, a milestone version of CyanogenMod or your favorite custom iteration of Android. For you non-rooting types, a factory image is stock, fresh-from-factory (hence the name) set of software files stored in .img (image file) format.
When you flash a factory image to your Nexus device, everything, and we mean everything. Pictures, apps, /system modifications, and modifications that you wouldn’t find in a device right out of the box are all gone when you install a factory image. What they guarantee though is that you have a version of Android ready to install should you need to reset a device to test, sell, or develop using and then remove traces of use from the inside. Anyway, now that that’s out of the way, back to the news.
Yes, the Nexus Player, Google’s reference device for the Android TV system and ecosystem is now among the Nexuses with its factory image in case something goes horribly wrong with an update (or modification, you sneaky people). The build is obviously for Android Lollipop, version 5.0, build number LRX21M. The name for the device is also given, which is fugu. Fugu is the Japanese name for the pufferfish, the inflatable animal of the sea. It’s interesting that this is the first poisonous fish for Google’s oceanic naming scheme, but it probably was just another name choice for them.
The Nexus Player is now the second Lollipop-baring Google product to get its stock software sent to Google’s developer depths, leaving only the LTE variant of the Nexus 9, and the Nexus 6. We will have to wait to see how the Nexus 6 and the rest of the currently-existing Nexus devices. Have a Nexus Player and excited that the factory image is out for use? Which Nexus device’s factory image are you waiting, and which do you think will get sent out last? Let us know down below.