Report: Google's Next Nexus Android Phone Might Drop Hardware Nav Buttons

Android devices come in a variety of shapes, sizes, and designs, as anyone who has had to write applications for Google?s mobile platform will tell you. But if a new leak is accurate about the next generation of the Nexus Android phones, Google (NSDQ: GOOG) and its partners may be preparing to remove a common link: the four navigation buttons at the bottom of nearly every Android phone screen.

The Boy Genius Report says that a tipster has leaked info about what is thought to be the next version of Google?s Nexus Android phone lineup, which it designs in order to push the envelope on hardware features and is generally used as a development platform. The Nexus 4G (a nickname for now because it will run on LTE) has state-of-the-art hardware common to Nexus phones, but also has an interesting design change. For the most part, Android users rely on four buttons at the base of the screen to navigate around the phone, pull up menus, and search their devices or the Internet. The Nexus 4G lacks those four buttons.

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It doesn?t appear that Google has a new navigation system in mind, but simply that it plans to replicate those buttons using software, rather than forcing phone makers to dedicate screen real estate to buttons that aren?t always needed. That?s a design philosophy that Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) embraced with the iPhone, and if Google is really following suit it would give Nexus 4G owners a bit more screen for watching videos or playing games.

This may be something that only appears on the Nexus-branded phones, but it?s interesting nonetheless. The new model is expected to arrive later this year, probably around the time that Ice Cream Sandwich, the next version of Android unveiled at May?s Google I/O conference, is ready to be released.

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Posted In: Gadgets, Mobile, Companies, Google, Android, nexus 4g

Source: http://feeds.moconews.net/~r/moconews/~3/dFnEAAn4Z-8/

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