Skip to main content

Oops! Google pulls Android KitKat statue video after apparent Nexus 5 spotted

google pulls video after nexus 5 spotted maybe 2

Check out our review of the Google Nexus 5 smart phone.

As you may or may not know, Google on Tuesday revealed it’ll be naming the next version of its Android operating system (v. 4.4) after a famous chocolate-covered wafer snack.

Now, with every new Android version comes a new statue for the Googleplex lawn in Mountain View. Today’s KitKat statue is exactly how you might imagine it, comprising Nestle’s chocolate bar with a couple of extra bits to make it look like the familiar Android logo.

The Web giant looks to have made something of a boo-boo, however, after it posted a video of a number of Googlers going gaga over the new addition to the patch of green grass outside their offices – with one of them apparently in possession of an unreleased handset.

About 38 seconds in, there’s a shot of a couple of people excitedly snapping a pic of the KitKat statue, with one of them holding what many believe to be the unreleased, unannounced Nexus 5 smartphone. The video has since been taken down by Google.

nexus 5 maybe 1

As pointed out by website 9to5Google, the back of the device, which is shown clearly in the video, resembles the back of the Nexus 7 tablet, with a horizontal ‘nexus’ logo. There look to be changes where the camera lens is located, too, which may link to comments made earlier this year by Google executive Vic Gundotra when he said the company intended to make Nexus phones “insanely great cameras”.

Finally, it looks larger than the Nexus 4, suggesting the device, if it is the Nexus 5, could be moving towards phablet territory. There’s no official word on when the handset might be released, though rumors point to an unveiling before the end of the year.

The fact that the video has been pulled suggests the company goofed up here, though it could of course be part of a clever marketing campaign designed to create a bit of buzz before the Nexus 5 publicity machine kicks in for real.

google video

Editors' Recommendations

Trevor Mogg
Contributing Editor
Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…
After Pixel unveiling, Google puts its Nexus program on indefinite hiatus
google kills nexus news 6p phone android marshmellow

Google's quixotic Nexus brand, a mix of high-end smartphones, set-top boxes, and other electronic experiments, is finally coming to an end. At the unveiling of the Pixel and Pixel XL in San Francisco on Tuesday, the company said it had "no plans" to produce future devices under the long-running Nexus umbrella.

The company confirmed to The Verge that it had "no immediate plans" to release Nexus hardware. And on Tuesday afternoon, it began removing the most recent Nexus devices, including the LG-made Nexus 5X and Huawei Nexus 6P handsets, from the Google Store. Existing Nexus users -- and their devices -- are not getting the shaft, though: the Google Nexus Twitter account confirmed that supported devices will "continue to [receive] customers support [and] software updates," although to what extent -- and for how long -- remains unclear.

Read more
Google will give you up to $200K if you can hack the newest version of Android
android dominant ios gartner androidn feat

Think you've got the hacking chops to breach a flagship Android phone? Google's willing to pay you to prove it. On Wednesday, the Mountain View, California-based company announced Project Zero, a contest that asks enterprising hackers to demonstrate flaws in the company's smartphone operating system in exchange for cold, hard cash.

"Despite the existence of vulnerability rewards programs at Google and other companies, many unique, high-quality security bugs have been discovered as a result of hacking contests," Google's Natalie Silvanovich wrote in a blog post. "The goal of this contest is to find a vulnerability or bug chain that achieves remote code execution on multiple Android devices knowing only the devices’ phone number and email address."

Read more
Google may offer an Android Nougat home-screen launcher just for Nexus devices
Nexus 6P

The fact that Android, search giant Google's mobile operating system, is open source means it should be somewhat consistent across the devices on which it's installed. But in practice, that's not exactly true. The firm has lately shown favoritism toward its top-end Nexus line of smartphones, in recent months introducing exclusive features like call spam filtering, a live support app, and photo cloud storage benefits. And rumor has it that the next round of changes will apply to one of the phones' most forward-facing elements: their home screen. Android Police reports that Google's upcoming Nexus devices, codenamed Marlin and Sailfish, could debut with a brand-new Android 7.0 Nougat launcher -- the technical name for Android's home screen -- "some time in the near future."

Google has offered its own first-party launcher, the Google Now Launcher, as an alternative to customized home screens from phone makers like LG, Huawei, Xiaomi, and Sony since 2014, but the rumored Nexus home screen reportedly stands independent of that effort. Aesthetically, the most obvious change is the elimination of the drawer icon, the Android shortcut that reveals a list of your phone's installed apps. It's been replaced by a small upward-facing arrow that opens the drawer instantaneously when tapped -- swiping up from the launcher's bottom bezel, meanwhile, reveals a translucent window that "fades in" as it follows your finger upward.

Read more