There is a lot of talk currently surrounding the upcoming Nexus smartphones for 2016 and while this is largely to be expected at this time of year, the talk is even greater this time around due to the common understanding that the Nexus phones won’t actually be branded as Nexus phones and instead will be Pixel phones. Namely the Pixel (aka Sailfish) and the Pixel XL (aka Marlin).
As to be expected the two smartphones have undergone a number of rumors, renders and spec leaking up until now, although one specific rumored point has remained unclear. As part of the pre-Pixel speculation, it was thought that the upcoming (then) Nexus smartphones would come running a new ‘Nexus Launcher’. However, once the Pixel branding suggestion came to light, this led to some confusion on whether the Pixels phones would come running the Nexus Launcher or whether the Nexus Launcher would come to market as the Pixel Launcher or branded as something completely different.
Then earlier today and courtesy of @LlabTooFer, images said to be of the launcher which comes running on the Pixel phones came to light. At the time @LlabTooFer did make it clear that this was the ‘Pixel Launcher‘. Which immediately led to questions as to whether the Pixel Launcher and the Nexus Launcher were one and the same thing. Which does now seem to be the case as following the earlier screenshot leaking, @LlabTooFer sent out another tweet clearly indicating that from @LlabTooFer’s perspective, there is no Nexus Launcher, stating “there is only Pixel Launcher“. Which is now being taken as confirmation that the Pixel smartphones will indeed come running on the Nexus Launcher, although it will be branded as the Pixel Launcher. So to be clear, the new Nexus phones for 2016 will be Pixel smartphones and the Nexus Launcher is the Pixel Launcher. That is, providing all the Pixel talk of late is correct, as this is still an element which has yet to be confirmed by Google. Although, that is likely to change in the coming weeks with the expected announce date for the Pixel and Pixel XL (and presumably the Pixel Launcher) to be October 4.