A new report from The Information claims that Google is looking to have more control over its Nexus smartphones. The company already has completely control over the software experience, but it now wants to have complete control over the hardware of the device as well, just like Apple has on the iPhone.
This essentially means a Nexus smartphone with no branding other than that of Google. And despite previous Nexus hardware being designed by Google, there is still a fair bit of input from the OEM that the company has partnered with that year on the design and build of the device. The report claims that Sundar Pichai, Google’s CEO, has signalled to colleagues and other executives that he wants Google to exercise more control over the Nexus smartphone lineup. The reason? Pichai is not comfortable with Google relying primarily on high-end devices from Apple for the majority of its revenue from its products and services. By having greater control on the Nexus lineup, Google and Pichai hope to create better high-end Android devices that can attract many loyal iPhone users to switch to the platform, which in turn will lead the company to rely less on Apple devices for generating revenue through its services. The Chromebook Pixel and the Pixel C are the perfect example of hardware that have been created by Google under its complete control. While the devices might not have been commercially successful, they are absolutely gorgeous pieces of hardware. The report claims that Google is already working with HTC for its new Nexus device this year, but since the handset will apparently lack any HTC branding, many executives inside the Taiwanese company are not happy with this move. As a Nexus fanboy, I definitely think Google exercising greater control on its Nexus smartphones will be good for the lineup, though it might not particularly go down well with Android OEMs.
